diff --git a/docs/changelog.rst b/docs/changelog.rst
index a64a68fde..397fac86f 100644
--- a/docs/changelog.rst
+++ b/docs/changelog.rst
@@ -97,6 +97,9 @@ Changelog
 
 - Follow xterm's behavior for the menu key (:iss:`597`)
 
+- Fix hover detection of URLs not working when hovering over the first colon
+  and slash characters in short URLs (:iss:`1201`)
+
 0.12.3 [2018-09-29]
 ------------------------------
 
diff --git a/kitty/line.c b/kitty/line.c
index c45b2764c..8a688add9 100644
--- a/kitty/line.c
+++ b/kitty/line.c
@@ -62,6 +62,13 @@ find_colon_slash(Line *self, index_type x, index_type limit) {
     do {
         char_type ch = self->cpu_cells[pos].ch;
         if (!is_url_char(ch)) return false;
+        if (pos == x) {
+            if (ch == ':') {
+                if (pos + 2 < self->xnum && self->cpu_cells[pos+1].ch == '/' && self->cpu_cells[pos + 2].ch == '/') state = SECOND_SLASH;
+            } else if (ch == '/') {
+                if (pos + 1 < self->xnum && self->cpu_cells[pos+1].ch == '/') state = FIRST_SLASH;
+            }
+        }
         switch(state) {
             case ANY:
                 if (ch == '/') state = FIRST_SLASH;
diff --git a/kitty_tests/datatypes.py b/kitty_tests/datatypes.py
index fa33f77a8..a474869f0 100644
--- a/kitty_tests/datatypes.py
+++ b/kitty_tests/datatypes.py
@@ -242,6 +242,9 @@ class TestDataTypes(BaseTest):
         self.ae(l0.url_end_at(0), len(l0) - 1)
         l2 = create("http://-abcd] ")
         self.ae(l2.url_end_at(0), len(l2) - 3)
+        l3 = create("http://ab.de           ")
+        self.ae(l3.url_start_at(4), 0)
+        self.ae(l3.url_start_at(5), 0)
 
         def lspace_test(n, scheme='http'):
             lf = create(' ' * n + scheme + '://acme.com')