How can link patterns hurt deliverability?

Spam filters don't just read your email content. They examine every URL in your message and evaluate the patterns they see. Some of those patterns are red flags, even if your intentions are completely legitimate.

Too many links in a single email is one. A newsletter with 50 links in it starts to look like a link farm or a phishing attempt to automated filters. Keep links purposeful. Three to six well-placed links in a typical marketing email is reasonable. Dozens is not.

Domain inconsistency is another. If your From address is @yourbrand.com but your links go to three different domains that don't match, filters take notice. Legitimate senders generally link to their own properties. Mismatched domains suggest either a compromised account or deliberate obfuscation. That's especially true if the link text says one thing and the URL goes somewhere else, a classic phishing technique that security filters look for specifically.

Your tracking domain's reputation matters as much as your content. If you're on a shared tracking domain with other senders and one of them gets blocklisted, every email you send contains links to a flagged domain. The fix is a custom tracking domain you control entirely.

Redirect chains also cause problems. A link that goes through your ESP's tracker, then to a URL shortener, then to your actual page is the kind of multi-hop redirect pattern that enterprise email security systems treat with suspicion. Keep it simple: one tracker redirect straight to the destination. Check your links before sending and make sure none of them chain through more than one intermediate URL.