diff --git a/public/app/features/alerting/unified/components/rule-editor/AnnotationsStep.tsx b/public/app/features/alerting/unified/components/rule-editor/AnnotationsStep.tsx
index df6d82009c1..12c66c2ca01 100644
--- a/public/app/features/alerting/unified/components/rule-editor/AnnotationsStep.tsx
+++ b/public/app/features/alerting/unified/components/rule-editor/AnnotationsStep.tsx
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ import { useFieldArray, useFormContext } from 'react-hook-form';
 import { useToggle } from 'react-use';
 
 import { GrafanaTheme2 } from '@grafana/data';
-import { Button, Field, Input, Text, TextArea, useStyles2, Stack } from '@grafana/ui';
+import { Button, Field, Input, Stack, Text, TextArea, useStyles2 } from '@grafana/ui';
 
 import { DashboardModel } from '../../../../dashboard/state';
 import { RuleFormValues } from '../../types/rule-form';
diff --git a/public/app/features/alerting/unified/components/rule-viewer/RuleViewer.tsx b/public/app/features/alerting/unified/components/rule-viewer/RuleViewer.tsx
index 0ff7c324605..13922c65f58 100644
--- a/public/app/features/alerting/unified/components/rule-viewer/RuleViewer.tsx
+++ b/public/app/features/alerting/unified/components/rule-viewer/RuleViewer.tsx
@@ -148,14 +148,18 @@ const createMetadata = (rule: CombinedRule): PageInfoItem[] => {
   const interval = group.interval;
 
   if (runbookUrl) {
+    /* TODO instead of truncating the string, we should use flex and text overflow properly to allow it to take up all of the horizontal space available */
+    const truncatedUrl = truncate(runbookUrl, { length: 42 });
+    const valueToAdd = isValidRunbookURL(runbookUrl) ? (
+      <TextLink variant="bodySmall" href={runbookUrl} external>
+        {truncatedUrl}
+      </TextLink>
+    ) : (
+      <Text variant="bodySmall">{truncatedUrl}</Text>
+    );
     metadata.push({
-      label: 'Runbook',
-      value: (
-        <TextLink variant="bodySmall" href={runbookUrl} external>
-          {/* TODO instead of truncating the string, we should use flex and text overflow properly to allow it to take up all of the horizontal space available */}
-          {truncate(runbookUrl, { length: 42 })}
-        </TextLink>
-      ),
+      label: 'Runbook URL',
+      value: valueToAdd,
     });
   }
 
@@ -360,4 +364,18 @@ const getStyles = () => ({
   }),
 });
 
+function isValidRunbookURL(url: string) {
+  const isRelative = url.startsWith('/');
+  let isAbsolute = false;
+
+  try {
+    new URL(url);
+    isAbsolute = true;
+  } catch (_) {
+    return false;
+  }
+
+  return isRelative || isAbsolute;
+}
+
 export default RuleViewer;