Should you remove all links?

Someone told you fewer links means better deliverability. It's one of those half-truths that sounds logical but misses the point entirely.

Spam filters don't count your links and penalize you for having too many. What they actually look at is where your links go and whether those destinations have a bad reputation. A clean, well-structured email with ten links to your own website is far less suspicious than one link pointing to a freshly registered domain with no SSL.

So no, you should not remove all your links. An email with zero links would look strange (to both filters and humans), and it would completely defeat the purpose of most marketing email.

What actually puts links in the danger zone:

• Linking to domains with poor reputation. If the site you're pointing to appears on blocklists, spam filters take notice. Reputation follows the destination, not just the sender.
• Linking to newly registered domains. A domain registered three days ago with no history reads as a red flag. Freshly spun-up redirect chains are a classic spam pattern.
• No SSL on the destination. An http:// link in 2025 is suspicious. Make sure every destination you link to has a valid SSL certificate and loads over https://.
• Excessive redirect chains. One redirect is fine. Four redirects through unfamiliar domains before reaching your landing page? That's going to raise eyebrows.
• Embedding direct download URLs. Security gateways flag emails with download links aggressively. If you need to share a file, put it in Google Drive or Dropbox and let the reader navigate there intentionally.

The practical answer on quantity is: use as many links as the email actually needs. A product digest with fifteen product links is totally normal. A plain-text check-in with one link is also fine. Just make sure every link earns its place and points somewhere trustworthy.

Your unsubscribe link counts too. It should always be easy to find (and yes, that's good for deliverability, not just compliance).

If you're worried about your domain's reputation before sending, you can run a quick check with our free blocklist checker. It takes about ten seconds and tells you whether your sending domain has any flags worth knowing about.