If you come across a hyperlink on the frontend of your website that is showing an error when it's clicked, it's possible that the URL was entered incorrectly.

A member enters their company's URL in the profile's bio section as http://membercompany.org. When you click the link in their member directory profile, an error is displayed instead of the website. From there, you go to Google and search for the company.

You then see that the actual URL is https://www.membercompany.org. Since the "s" was missing from "http" and they did not include the "www" that means their DNS pointers are not properly configured.

The next steps are to change the URL so it's pointing to the correct destination, and also notify the member that their other DNS pointers are not working.

Domain Name Servers (DNS) are the Internet's equivalent of a phone book. They maintain a directory of domain names and translate them to Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. This is necessary because, although domain names are easy for people to remember, computers or machines, access websites based on IP addresses.

A DNS record is a record in DNS that points a domain name to an IP address or to another domain name. Each version of a URL (https, http, www, etc.) is a different pointer. Usually, all versions of a website URL are created and pointed to the correct destination. However, if a DNS record is not configured correctly, it may not direct properly. In this case, you'd have to use the exact link that works or contact the person who provided the link to let them know it's not working.