It seems to be becoming more common place for e-mailers to include a URL in the Subject: field with the body of their e-mail noting what one is supposed to do with that URL.
Generally, the recipient is expected to visit the URL in the Subject: field for one reason or another as stated by the Sender. The problem with this is two fold:
- The Subject: field does not allow an endless number of characters. Depending on the system or software, only so many words/letters can be included. What happens quite often is the full URL is not displayed and therefore cut-off leaving an incomplete URL.
- The Subject: field is not clickable. If you put the URL in the body of the message as you are supposed to, the URL becomes clickable for the recipient to easily visit the site as you desire. If the URL is in the Subject: field one has to copy, then paste the URL into their browser.
If you want to share a Web site address with someone, use the Subject field not for the URL but for a brief explanation of why you want them to visit the site. “Check out this site” or “URL for you to visit” — you get the idea.
Placing URLs that you want folks to visit in the Subject: field reflects a lack of tech savvy or simple laziness. Neither of which are complimentary when it comes to your business e-mail communications.
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Though I would not do this in a particularly official e-mail, I have found it useful in some situations to place a URL in the subject.
I used to work for a large bank on the east coast. They used Novell Groupwise as their e-mail client. When sending an e-mail to my team regarding a useful URL that I knew would be visited more than once, I would place it in the subject field. This is because in Groupwise, when you were browsing your inbox, or any folder for that matter, URLs in the subject line were displayed as hyperlinks. Thus, they could navigate to that site without having to open the e-mail.
Hey, Kris:
Thanks for your comments!
While using the URL works in the situation you describe — and I’ve had some clients who do the same, you do risk that being viewed as spammy not only for having those characters in the Subject: field by by sending an empty e-mail.
I use Eudora and the URL is not clickable in the Subject field and when clients use the Subject: field for a URL, I have to copy and paste to go view it. Whereas if it was actually in the body of the e-mail, I could easily click and go.
If within a network and on Groupwise — those concerns would not apply and I can see where doing what you say could work.