diff --git a/Gemfile b/Gemfile
index ac48d28..1a40be7 100644
--- a/Gemfile
+++ b/Gemfile
@@ -45,3 +45,6 @@ gem 'wombat',  '~> 2.2.1'
 
 # slugs
 gem 'friendly_id', '~> 5.0.0'
+
+# fix urls while scraping
+gem 'addressable', '~> 2.3.6', require: "addressable/uri"
diff --git a/Gemfile.lock b/Gemfile.lock
index fd1ed7f..dbb339a 100644
--- a/Gemfile.lock
+++ b/Gemfile.lock
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ GEM
       minitest (~> 5.1)
       thread_safe (~> 0.1)
       tzinfo (~> 1.1)
+    addressable (2.3.6)
     arel (5.0.1.20140414130214)
     builder (3.2.2)
     coffee-rails (4.0.1)
@@ -149,6 +150,7 @@ PLATFORMS
   ruby
 
 DEPENDENCIES
+  addressable (~> 2.3.6)
   coffee-rails (~> 4.0.0)
   friendly_id (~> 5.0.0)
   jbuilder (~> 2.0)
diff --git a/app/models/paper.rb b/app/models/paper.rb
index e94d206..2bf8242 100644
--- a/app/models/paper.rb
+++ b/app/models/paper.rb
@@ -30,4 +30,13 @@ def normalize_friendly_id(value)
   def full_reference
     legislative_term.to_s + '/' + reference.to_s
   end
+
+
+  # helper method to fix non-standard urls in the database
+  # apply it with: Paper.find_each(&:normalize_url)
+  def normalize_url
+    normalized_url = Addressable::URI.parse(self.url).normalize.to_s
+    write_attribute(:url, normalized_url)
+    save!
+  end
 end
diff --git a/app/scrapers/bayern_landtag_scraper.rb b/app/scrapers/bayern_landtag_scraper.rb
index e621882..ba075a4 100644
--- a/app/scrapers/bayern_landtag_scraper.rb
+++ b/app/scrapers/bayern_landtag_scraper.rb
@@ -44,7 +44,9 @@ def scrape
         Date.parse(text.match(/([\d\.]+)$/)[1]) unless text.nil?
       end
       url 'xpath=.//a[not(contains(@href, "LASTFOLDER"))]/@href' do |href|
-        BASE_URL + href unless href.nil?
+        unless href.nil?
+          Addressable::URI.parse(BASE_URL + href).normalize.to_s
+        end
       end
       #text 'xpath=(following-sibling::tr[2]/td[contains(@class, "pad_bot0")])[1]'
       title 'xpath=following-sibling::tr[2]/td[3]' do |text|