diff --git a/src/Content/Text/BBCode.php b/src/Content/Text/BBCode.php
index 2c324a433..2d1c681f4 100644
--- a/src/Content/Text/BBCode.php
+++ b/src/Content/Text/BBCode.php
@@ -1268,24 +1268,7 @@ class BBCode extends BaseObject
 
 		// if the HTML is used to generate plain text, then don't do this search, but replace all URL of that kind to text
 		if (!$for_plaintext) {
-			// Autolink feature (thanks to https://daringfireball.net/2010/07/improved_regex_for_matching_urls)
-			$autolink_regex = '@(?xi)
-(?<![=\'\]"/])          # Not preceded by =, \', ], ", /
-\b
-(                       # Capture 1: entire matched URL
-  https?://                 # http or https protocol
-  (?:
-    [^/.][^/]+[.][^/]+/?    # looks like domain name followed by a slash
-  )
-  (?:                       # One or more:
-    [^\s()<>]+                  # Run of non-space, non-()<>
-    |                           #   or
-    \(([^\s()<>]+|(\([^\s()<>]+\)))*\)  # balanced parens, up to 2 levels
-    |                               #   or
-    [^\s`!()\[\]{};:\'".,<>?«»“”‘’]        # not a space or one of these punct chars
-  )*
-)@';
-			$text = preg_replace($autolink_regex, '[url]$1[/url]', $text);
+			$text = preg_replace(Strings::autoLinkRegEx(), '[url]$1[/url]', $text);
 			if ($simple_html == 7) {
 				$text = preg_replace_callback("/\[url\]([$URLSearchString]*)\[\/url\]/ism", 'self::convertUrlForOStatusCallback', $text);
 				$text = preg_replace_callback("/\[url\=([$URLSearchString]*)\]([$URLSearchString]*)\[\/url\]/ism", 'self::convertUrlForOStatusCallback', $text);
diff --git a/src/Util/Strings.php b/src/Util/Strings.php
index 55751d8d8..3edc9ba90 100644
--- a/src/Util/Strings.php
+++ b/src/Util/Strings.php
@@ -346,4 +346,30 @@ class Strings
 
 		return $return;
 	}
+
+	/**
+	 * Returns the regular expression string to match URLs in a given text
+	 *
+	 * @return string
+	 * @see https://daringfireball.net/2010/07/improved_regex_for_matching_urls
+	 */
+	public static function autoLinkRegEx()
+	{
+		return '@(?xi)
+(?<![=\'\]"/])          # Not preceded by [, =, \', ], ", /
+\b
+(                       # Capture 1: entire matched URL
+  https?://                 # http or https protocol
+  (?:
+    [^/.][^/]+[.][^/]+/?    # looks like domain name followed by a slash
+  )
+  (?:                       # One or more:
+    [^\s()<>]+                  # Run of non-space, non-()<>
+    |                           #   or
+    \(([^\s()<>]+|(\([^\s()<>]+\)))*\)  # balanced parens, up to 2 levels
+    |                               #   or
+    [^\s`!()\[\]{};:\'".,<>?«»“”‘’]        # not a space or one of these punct chars
+  )*
+)@';
+	}
 }