Links to google.com redirector(?) inside emails don't work

MikeH300

Hello, I get several (subscriber) newsletters daily that seem to use a google.com address to redirect (track…) my clicks. These are to things like articles mentioned in the newsletter, etc. Previously most of these worked with the VPN running. Recently, like around Aug 25 or so, these started to fail at a much higher rate, like over half the time. Clicking on a link pops up a new window or tab in the browser (Chrome to start), the URL appears in the URL line of the browser, then all progress stops. Clicking retry gives nothing. For the links that work, usually the same result up to "all progress stops" - then after 2-3 seconds the URL changes to the linked-to address and the page appears.

I don't see any warnings on most of these clicked links/URLs. The ones that generate a warning I understand.

How can I get more/most of these links to work? I'd like the VPN protection when I "going through my morning emails."

Thanks!

Alexandru_BD

Hello, welcome to the community and thanks for the detailed description.

From the info above, I think the issue might be related specifically to the redirect/tracking domains used inside some newsletters rather than to the destination websites themselves. Many email newsletters don’t link directly to the article or page you want to open. Instead, the click first goes through a tracking or redirect service.
In your case apparently a Google-hosted URL, which then forwards the browser to the final destination.

Since the problem occurs mainly while the VPN is connected, I would try a few things to narrow this down:

• Connect to a different VPN server and test the same links again. Some redirect or tracking services may temporarily reject, rate-limit, or behave differently with certain VPN IP addresses.
• Change the VPN protocol and retest. Different protocols can sometimes behave differently depending on the network, browser and destination service.
• Temporarily disable the VPN's ad blocker and anti-tracker options, if enabled, and check whether the affected newsletter links start working. Since these URLs are often specifically designed for click tracking, this is an important test.
• Try the same link in another browser to rule out an interaction with Chrome extensions, cached data, Secure DNS or other browser settings.
• Clear the browser cache/cookies for the affected domains and retry.

Note that Bitdefender VPN also supports Split Tunneling, so you can add a problematic domain and allow it to connect outside the encrypted tunnel while keeping the VPN enabled for the rest of your traffic.

One thing worth keeping in mind is that newsletter redirects can involve several different domains in sequence. Excluding only the final website may therefore not help if the initial tracking/redirect request is being made to another domain. Since you mentioned that the behavior became significantly more frequent around August 25, I’d also be interested to know whether disabling ad blocker and anti-tracker or changing the VPN server immediately restores those same links. That would help determine whether you’re looking at a filtering issue or something related to the particular VPN exit IP…

Regards