New Feature: Warnings for external links (Deactivate this feature?)

[fred_asel]

Since January 09, 2025 a new function has been added to Lookerstudio.

Warnings for external links

When users click an external link, Looker Studio displays a redirect notice.

I use Google Lookerstudio to investigate join different sources that also contains hyperlinks, that we are actively using and clicking to investigate the sources. It's kind of a yellow pages approach to monitor different of our sources.

Unfortunately this redirect page is hindering our since so seamless workflow now a lot. Since it's a feature I would love to deactivate for our boards.

I understand it's very helpful in certain cases but in our case it's creating more problems than it helps.

EDIT: Some links that work for our us are classified as Invalid, that contain a lot of parameters. But when we open them they work seemlessly. I can work around this when I switch in the "Edit" and draft version of the board, but I don't want to give all people that work with the board "Edit" rights. A part of our functionality is now missing. This was a very important feature for us. 

Is there a way to deactivate this feature?

All the best,
Fred

[schristensen]

Totally agree, very annoying, I created a ticket to support and they say for security reasons admins aren't able to deactivate this feature, well al least let us validate de hyperlink domain or something otherwise it gets really frustrating working with reports this way.

[fred_asel]

I also have the problem, that links are classified as "invalid" that are valid for our purposes. If the link would just open normally it would work, but since I'm redirected to a page that says "The page you were on is trying to send you to an invalid URL" a part of our functionality is missing, because I can only open the links when I'm in the draft version and switched to the "Edit" before.

I don't want to give everybody that works with our boards edit right, when they only should view.

[kamildurana]

painful and annoying, agree, I have the same problem

[VladV]

Ditto: this extra click adds considerable overhead considering it is used by hundreds of people who frequently open multiple links as part of their day-to-day work. I understand it might be useful for some, but I would very much appreciate the ability to disable it or at least add some exclusions so the warning won't trigger in our most commonly used scenarios.

[schristensen]

Hi here is a request in the feedback system, you can help to solve this by upvoting the request, thanks. https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/391172470

[OliverOu]

Voted by "I am impacted"

[lcallander]

agree!  very annoying!  This used to not be the case, it just recently started.  Do not get the error when linking to other LookerStudio reports or other Google products (ie: gads, analytics, big query).  Only on non-google products.  We use this as a dashboard and link to various client resources, so this is very annoying!  Wish there was a way to override this, at least in the field where the link is set up.

[santosh_Kolekar]

Yes. I am also facing same issue. 

[santosh_Kolekar]

Has anyone found a solution for this issue? If yes, please help me.

[andiw988]

Links are marked as "invalid" and don’t open directly, causing issues. They only work in draft mode with "Edit" enabled. I need a fix without giving everyone edit rights.

[andiw988]

This issue is frustrating. I contacted support, but they said admins can't turn off this feature for security reasons. At least there should be a way to validate hyperlink domains. Otherwise, working with reports becomes difficult.

[MichaelP]

Agree

I have a Looker Studio report embedded on my website with various external links.  Users of my website are having to click 2 times for every external URL.  They're annoyed!

I understand that security is important of course, and I don't want anyone going to a suspect URL.

But, I'm thinking that Looker are overreaching their responsibilities to their users.  Shouldn't this sort of protection be more foundational, and not the responsibility of a reporting tool like Looker Studio?  When I perform a Google search and click on the various results, I only get a warning if the link is sending me to a URL that Google has already pre-assessed as suspect.  Otherwise, I'm sent directly to that location.  Shouldn't Looker Studio be doing the same/similar?

[QLK]

I agree. There has to be some other way of providing security, otherwise,
every link we click on the internet would tell us we are going to another
site.

[caremore]

I understand the reason but can they add whitelist for domain or ip address. when click the external link that match with whitelist no need to show redirect notice..

[otoole]

I have several links and one is to a google.com site (not looker studio) so that one works fine but the other ones trigger a redirect notice. It makes it look like incompetence on my end that I made one link work correctly and not the others. So frustrating for this reason and all the reasons above. I'd personally rather not have the links when the user experience is so poor.