Seeking clarification on a couple of points related to my Upwork account and activities.

[hellbit]

Dear Upwork Support,

I hope this email finds you well. I am writing to seek clarification on a couple of points related to my Upwork account and activities.

Firstly, I would like to understand the guidelines regarding the inclusion of external links in cover letters. Specifically, I would like to know what types of external links are permissible to include when submitting proposals to potential clients. Are there any restrictions or best practices that I should be aware of to ensure compliance with Upwork's policies?

Secondly, I have noticed a significant decrease in the number of incoming invites over the past month. Previously, my account consistently received 20-40 invites per month, but this has dropped off unexpectedly. I even have a boosted profile, which contributed to the steady flow of invites. Could you please provide insight into why this change may have occurred and suggest any actions I can take to address this issue?

Thank you for your assistance and support. I look forward to your response.

Best regards,
Aleksandr

[spectralua]

Links allowed but cannot contain any your contact info or way to contact you outside.

[yofazza]

This is a well-known grey-area 😁 Some mods said what Mykola said above, but some other said "We understand these outside links may contain contact information blabla... Make sure to remind the potential client to communicate within Upwork before contract blabla...".

Specifically, I would like to know what types of external links are permissible

I think that sometimes we can tell if 'a provided link' is meant to show the work, or the contact info. Just make sure your provided link is not the latter. But, as I said, it's a grey area, so it's probably not that easy to do, there are no straight guidelines. People might have different opinions, including the Upwork team (or their bots), who might send you some warnings after you post some links.

For me, I always post links and never got any warnings, except once when I couldn't post a proposal because the link I included turned out to trigger 'dangerous site' warnings on some browsers (which of course is a false alarm). Which was quite a wonder as Upwork actually happened to have a "protect the user" feature.

As for the second part of the question, a  single-sentence answer would be, "don't get caught in their game".