# Yahoo Messenger is acting strange.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-messenger-is-acting-strange/557093>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 14, 2010, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-messenger-is-acting-strange/557093 "2010-10-14T05:29:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\
**Post date:** [October 14, 2010, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-messenger-is-acting-strange/557093/1 "2010-10-14T05:29:52Z")

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Whenever my girlfriend tries sending me a link via IM on Yahoo, if it comes as a hyperlink (i.e., she put the http:// ahead of it), then Yahoo takes it upon itself to take the domain name, and convert it to the IP address of the respective website. Clicking on this fails to produce a website. It’s been doing this over several months and years, and I’m finally at the point of frustration where I want to fix it.

Anyone else encounter this? Suggestions? Solutions?

Thanks in advance!

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**Author:** ![mittu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@mittu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mittu)\
**Post date:** [October 14, 2010, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-messenger-is-acting-strange/557093/2 "2010-10-14T05:37:28Z")

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What appears in the address bar when you click on the link? If I ping [www.google.com](http://www.google.com) and then use firefox to go to the address directly it works no problem. I don’t think all websites will respond to ip address directly but [google.com](http://google.com) seems to.

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**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\
**Post date:** [October 14, 2010, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yahoo-messenger-is-acting-strange/557093/3 "2010-10-14T06:01:15Z")

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> [@antonio107](#):
>
> Whenever my girlfriend tries sending me a link via IM on Yahoo, if it comes as a hyperlink (i.e., she put the http:// ahead of it), then Yahoo takes it upon itself to take the domain name, and **converts it to her IP address**. Clicking on this fails to produce a website. It’s been doing this over several months and years, and I’m finally at the point of frustration where I want to fix it.
> 
> Anyone else encounter this? Suggestions? Solutions?
> 
> Thanks in advance!

Fixed, after having tried the IP address myself. It explains why what you said didn’t work, **mittu** , even though it makes cogent sense.