diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index aa9a687..217661d 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+2020-11-18  Omar Polo  <op@omarpolo.com>
+
+	* gmid.c (url_after_proto): correct url parsing: accept URLs
+	without explicit protocol
+
 2020-11-17  Omar Polo  <op@omarpolo.com>
 
 	* gmid.c (main): add flag -p to change the port
diff --git a/gmid.c b/gmid.c
index 87a4a62..d0f03a7 100644
--- a/gmid.c
+++ b/gmid.c
@@ -172,19 +172,25 @@ url_after_proto(char *url)
 {
 	char *s;
 	const char *proto = "gemini";
-	const char *marker = "://";
+	const char *marker = "//";
 
 	/* a relative URL */
 	if ((s = strstr(url, marker)) == NULL)
 		return url;
 
+	/*
+	 * if a protocol is not specified, gemini should be implied:
+	 * this handles the case of //example.com
+	 */
+	if (s == url)
+		return s + strlen(marker);
+
 	if (s - strlen(proto) != url)
 		return NULL;
 
 	if (!starts_with(url, proto))
 		return NULL;
 
-	/* a valid gemini:// URL */
 	return s + strlen(marker);
 }