Something is causing <href to change to <!- -ref

strange href happenings

[deanw]

I have a strange problem happening on my site that is difficult to troubleshoot because I'm unable to replicate it on my end.

A small percentage of my visitors are unable to view links because:

<href="detail.asp?AdID=1234"

is changing to:

<!--="detail.asp?AdID=1234"

Does anyone have any idea of what might cause this?

[ShawnR]

hi dean and welcome to WebmasterWorld!

Perhaps the problem is the tag. href is an attribute, not a tag. e.g.

<a href="...">press me</a>

not

<href="...">press me</a>

Shawn

[g1smd]

Run the code through [validator.w3.org...] to see what typos you have in the code.

[deanw]

Actually The code is:
<a href="detail.asp?AdID=1234"

and it checks out fine with the code validator.

What could cause the code to be re-written?
I thought maybe pop-up blocker software but the couple of people I talked to who have this problem say that they don't use it. They're both using IE 6.0.

[JuDDer]

I've seen this exact same thing before.
It took me months to figure out and I finally worked out that it was the AdID in the querystring being blocked for users of Norton.

Norton seems to think that the querystring is a link to some kind of ad and attempts to block it.

In my case it was commenting out the entire link but it looks like it's just commenting out the start of the link for you.

The only way round it for me was to change the "AdID" querystring to something else instead.