Just found an amazing bug of jQuery (used Version 1.2.2): I just tried to replace the href of links of a site by prepending a tracking-URL: $(function() { $('a').each(function() { $(this).attr('href', 'http://www.tracking.com/?url=/'+escape($ (this).attr('href')) ); }); }); This function replaces the linktext in IE, if it's equal to an URL This works: <a href="http://www.google.com/">Google</a> ===> <a href="http:// www.tracking.com?url=http%3A//www.google.com/">Google</a> This doesn't work: <a href="http://www.google.com/">http://www.google.com</a> ===> <a href="http://www.tracking.com?url=http%3A//www.google.com/">http:// www.tracking.com?url=http%3A//www.google.com/</a> I found a work around by first replacing the link text, changing the href and replacing the link text again, but.... ;-)