Fix Divi Dynamic Link Adding “,%20_blank” and Causing 404

If your Divi button uses a dynamic content link and clicking it sends visitors to a 404 page, check the URL in the address bar. If it ends with ,%20_blank (for example https://example.com/,%20_blank), the problem is not your page or your permalinks. Divi is reading a link array from a custom field and turning the whole array into one broken URL.

This guide explains why it happens and gives you three ways to fix it, most of which take under a minute.

Why Divi adds “,%20_blank” to your link

%20 is an encoded space. So the real link Divi outputs is:

https://example.com/, _blank

That is two values joined with a comma: the URL and the link target (_blank means “open in new tab”).

This happens when the dynamic field is an ACF Link field (or a similar link-type field) set to return a Link Array. ACF stores that field as three parts:

• url – the address
• title – the link text
• target – _blank if “Open link in a new tab” is ticked

Divi’s dynamic content expects a plain text value for a button URL. When it gets an array, it flattens it into a comma-separated string. Your WordPress dashboard still shows a clean URL, but the front end receives url, _blank. The browser treats this as a path that doesn’t exist, so you get a 404.

Fix 1: Change the ACF return format to “Link URL” (fastest)

1. Go to ACF → Field Groups and open the group that contains your link field.
2. Click the link field to expand its settings.
3. Find Return Format and change it from Link Array to Link URL.
4. Click Save Changes.

Divi now receives only the URL, and the button works. Because the target is no longer passed through, open your Divi button settings, go to Link → Button Link Target, and set it to In The New Tab.

Fix 2: Change the field type from “Link” to “URL”

If you don’t need editors to control the link title or target from the custom field, use a simple URL field type instead:

1. In ACF, edit the field and change Field Type from Link to URL.
2. Save the field group.
3. Open each post or project that uses the field, confirm the URL, and click Update. This rewrites the stored value as plain text.
4. Set In The New Tab on the Divi button if needed.

Fix 3: Keep the link array and filter it with code

If other parts of your site rely on the full link array, leave the field as it is and convert it to a URL only when the value is output. Add this to your child theme’s functions.php or a code snippets plugin, and replace project_link with your field name:

add_filter( 'acf/format_value/name=project_link', function ( $value ) {
    if ( is_array( $value ) && ! empty( $value['url'] ) ) {
        return $value['url'];
    }
    return $value;
}, 20 );

Keep in mind that this filter applies everywhere ACF formats that field, including any template code that expects the array. If you use the array elsewhere, Fix 1 or a separate URL field is cleaner.

Clear caches after the fix

Divi and caching plugins can keep serving the old broken link. After applying any fix:

• Go to Divi → Theme Options → Builder → Advanced and click Clear next to Static CSS File Generation.
• Purge your caching plugin (WP Rocket, LiteSpeed Cache, W3 Total Cache, etc.).
• Purge your CDN or server cache if you use Cloudflare or host-level caching.
• Reload the page in a private window and hover over the button to confirm the URL is clean.

Not using ACF? Check the stored value

If you are using a different custom fields plugin or a custom meta box, check what is actually saved in the database. Install Query Monitor or temporarily output the value with:

var_dump( get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), 'your_field_name', true ) );

• If it returns an array, use the same approach as above: return only the URL key, or change the field to a plain URL type.
• If it returns the literal text https://example.com/, _blank, something (an import, a form, or a custom meta box) saved the target into the URL field. Edit the field so it contains only the URL.