diff --git a/src/scanner/scanners/external-links.ts b/src/scanner/scanners/external-links.ts
index e620bbf..55da568 100644
--- a/src/scanner/scanners/external-links.ts
+++ b/src/scanner/scanners/external-links.ts
@@ -112,11 +112,15 @@ function isExternalUrl(text: string): boolean {
 export function extractBareUrls(content: string): string[] {
 	const urls: string[] = [];
 	const seen = new Set<string>();
-	const body = stripIgnoredMarkdownRegions(stripFrontmatter(content));
+	// Markdown link syntax is masked so anything glued to it — emphasis
+	// markers, curly quotes, possessives — never reaches the bare extractor;
+	// those URLs are already collected from link metadata.
+	const body = stripIgnoredMarkdownRegions(stripFrontmatter(content))
+		.replace(/!?\[[^\]\n]*\]\([ \t]*(?:<[^>\n]*>|[^)\s]*)[ \t]*\)/g, "");
 	const urlPattern = /https?:\/\/[^\s<>"']+/gi;
 
 	for (const match of body.matchAll(urlPattern)) {
-		const url = trimUrlBoundary(match[0]);
+		const url = trimUrlBoundary(cutAtNonUrlCharacter(match[0]));
 		if (!url || seen.has(url)) continue;
 		seen.add(url);
 		urls.push(url);
@@ -125,6 +129,18 @@ export function extractBareUrls(content: string): string[] {
 	return urls;
 }
 
+// RFC 3986 URL characters plus unicode letters, numbers, and combining marks
+// (unencoded non-ASCII punctuation in a URL is always prose contamination —
+// conforming URLs must percent-encode it).
+const urlCharacter = /[A-Za-z0-9\-._~!$&'()*+,;=:/?#%[\]@\p{L}\p{N}\p{M}]/u;
+
+function cutAtNonUrlCharacter(url: string): string {
+	for (let index = 0; index < url.length; index += 1) {
+		if (!urlCharacter.test(url[index])) return url.slice(0, index);
+	}
+	return url;
+}
+
 function stripFrontmatter(content: string): string {
 	const match = /^---\r?\n[\s\S]*?\r?\n---(?:\r?\n|$)/.exec(content);
 	return match ? content.slice(match[0].length) : content;
diff --git a/src/tests/external-links.test.ts b/src/tests/external-links.test.ts
index 51b6346..93bd95b 100644
--- a/src/tests/external-links.test.ts
+++ b/src/tests/external-links.test.ts
@@ -67,16 +67,35 @@ describe("externalLinksScanner", () => {
 	});
 
 	it.each([
-		["*[Empis tessellata](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empis_tessellata)*", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empis_tessellata"],
-		["**[note](https://example.com/a)**", "https://example.com/a"],
 		["_https://example.com/a_", "https://example.com/a"],
 		["~~https://example.com/a~~", "https://example.com/a"],
-		["[t](https://example.com/a_(b))*", "https://example.com/a_(b)"],
 		["https://example.com/a_", "https://example.com/a"],
-	])("trims markdown emphasis markers after a URL: %s", (body, expected) => {
+	])("trims markdown emphasis markers after a bare URL: %s", (body, expected) => {
 		expect(extractBareUrls(body)).toEqual([expected]);
 	});
 
+	it.each([
+		// Markdown link syntax is masked before bare extraction: those URLs are
+		// collected from link metadata, so anything glued to the syntax —
+		// emphasis, curly quotes, possessives — never reaches the extractor.
+		["*[Empis tessellata](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empis_tessellata)*", []],
+		["**[note](https://example.com/a)**", []],
+		["[t](https://example.com/a_(b))*", []],
+		["“[note](https://example.com/a)”", []],
+		["*[t](https://x.com/a)*’s habitat", []],
+		// Nested brackets break the mask; the URL falls through to bare
+		// extraction cleanly and dedupes against the metadata link.
+		["[a [b] c](https://example.com/a) leftover", ["https://example.com/a"]],
+		// Bare URLs cut at the first character that cannot appear in a URL;
+		// unicode letters/numbers (IDN paths) survive.
+		["https://x.com/a’s page", ["https://x.com/a"]],
+		["https://x.com/a”", ["https://x.com/a"]],
+		["https://x.com/a」。", ["https://x.com/a"]],
+		["https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/日本語", ["https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/日本語"]],
+	])("handles unicode and markdown boundaries around URLs: %s", (body, expected) => {
+		expect(extractBareUrls(body)).toEqual(expected);
+	});
+
 	it("checks an italic-wrapped markdown link as a single clean URL", async () => {
 		const url = "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empis_tessellata";
 		const request = vi.fn(async (_url: string, method: "HEAD" | "GET") => ({ status: 200, method }));