diff --git a/src/components/views/messages/TextualBody.js b/src/components/views/messages/TextualBody.js
index 631caadac2..223eabdc36 100644
--- a/src/components/views/messages/TextualBody.js
+++ b/src/components/views/messages/TextualBody.js
@@ -84,11 +84,12 @@ module.exports = React.createClass({
     findLink: function(nodes) {
         for (var i = 0; i < nodes.length; i++) {
             var node = nodes[i];
-            if (node.tagName === "A" && node.getAttribute("href") && 
-                (node.getAttribute("href").startsWith("http://") ||
-                 node.getAttribute("href").startsWith("https://")))
+            if (node.tagName === "A" && node.getAttribute("href"))
             {
-                return node;
+                return this.isLinkPreviewable(node) ? node : undefined;
+            }
+            else if (node.tagName === "PRE" || node.tagName === "CODE") {
+                return;
             }
             else if (node.children && node.children.length) {
                 return this.findLink(node.children)
@@ -96,6 +97,37 @@ module.exports = React.createClass({
         }
     },
 
+    isLinkPreviewable: function(node) {
+        // don't try to preview relative links
+        if (!node.getAttribute("href").startsWith("http://") &&
+            !node.getAttribute("href").startsWith("https://"))
+        {
+            return false;
+        }
+
+        // as a random heuristic to avoid highlighting things like "foo.pl"
+        // we require the linked text to either include a / (either from http://
+        // or from a full foo.bar/baz style schemeless URL) - or be a markdown-style
+        // link, in which case we check the target text differs from the link value.
+        // TODO: make this configurable?
+        if (node.textContent.indexOf("/") > -1)
+        {
+            return node;
+        }
+        else {
+            var url = node.getAttribute("href");
+            var host = url.match(/^https?:\/\/(.*?)(\/|$)/)[1];
+            if (node.textContent.trim().startsWith(host)) {
+                // it's a "foo.pl" style link
+                return;
+            }
+            else {
+                // it's a [foo bar](http://foo.com) style link
+                return node;
+            }
+        }
+    },
+
     onCancelClick: function(event) {
         this.setState({ widgetHidden: true });
         // FIXME: persist this somewhere smarter than local storage