At one point in our daily lives, we all have clicked on a link we wish we hadn’t. You’ve done it. Your friends have done it. Even the sweet, nice old lady across the street watering her garden every morning has done it. It’s an interesting moment in time. A weird sense of acceptance slowly creeps into your mind as you wager with the internet the belief that what you are about to see on your screen can’t be all that bad…right?

Wrong. The horrible sight your eyes have to gander upon can only be described as traumatizing. Nothing but flashy call-to-action banners claiming you are their 100,000th visitor, a looped video clip of some model informing you about the hundreds of local singles in your area, or even the abundant variety of misleading “Click Here To Download” buttons where you’re not sure whether this is the button that will download the PDF you’ve been scouring the entire internet for or if you’ve just unlocked a special game of CryptoLocker.

I, for one, welcome those websites. It’s a right of passage I believe every person should go through at one point in their lives to really drive the point home to (and I can not stress this enough) BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU CLICK ON.

Hover your mouse over the linked media and a thin-stripped box containing a URL will fade into view towards the bottom half of the browser window. This small, yet effective method reduces the risk of ignorance in users and what they could potentially click on.

You can also right-click on the linked media and select the Copy link address option. What the right-clicked prompt displays varies browser to browser. Paste the URL you just copied anywhere you’d like. You can paste it into a Word document, an email response, or into Google Search. It does not matter where you paste the URL you copied as long as you can look and verify that that link says what the text portrays.

Now not all websites are untrustworthy. There are reputable and legitimate sites out there such as LA Times or Wired where you can relax a little easier knowing that what they link on their site is dependable. However, if you’re on a satirical website such as The Onion, then you might want to second guess what you’re clicking on.

Let’s go ahead and put into practice what you’ve just spent time reading about. Hover your mouse over this link here and check out what the URL at the bottom of your browser shows up as. Once you’ve completed that task, right-click over this link now and copy/paste the link anywhere on your computer to confirm what the URL is.

Pretty neat and nifty, am I right?

With this newfound wisdom bestowed upon you, you’re now better equipped to handle the glorious (and sometimes weird) wonders of the internet. So go out there, be safe, have fun, and please try to not send money to any Nigerian Prince.

If you have any questions or concerns at all, shoot us an email at support@enthusiastinc.com and we will be more than happy to answer any and all of your questions.