It sounds like the link itself isn’t “broken” in the usual sense, since it works in the Hyperlinks panel and in Word, but something about InDesign’s export process or PDF interpretation is tripping up that one URL.
A few things to try:
Check for hidden characters
Sometimes URLs copied from browsers or documents include invisible characters, like non-breaking spaces, zero-width spaces, or line breaks. These won’t show in the panel but can prevent the PDF from recognising the link. Try typing the URL manually in a new hyperlink rather than pasting it.
Simplify the URL
If it’s a long URL with query strings or special characters, try shortening it using the domain plus path only, or a URL shortener, and see if the PDF handles it.
Remove formatting from the text
Select the text and clear overrides, or paste the text into a plain-text editor and back into InDesign, then recreate the hyperlink. Sometimes hidden character styles or glyphs can interfere.
Create the link on a different text frame
Copy the text into a new text frame and apply the hyperlink there. Occasionally the frame itself can carry metadata that conflicts with interactive PDF export.
Check PDF export settings
Make sure “Include Hyperlinks” is enabled and avoid any options that flatten or downsample interactive elements - as urls are picked up by Acrobat (www. or https) but if you've got Check This Link and don't have the option selected it won't do anything. Maybe some PDF readers are not handling the text link correctly - are you using Acrobat all the time - or a 3rd party PDF reader?
Test with a fresh file
Create a new InDesign file with just that one hyperlink and export it. If it still fails, that confirms the problem is URL-specific rather than file-specific.
Unfortunately, some URLs just behave oddly in PDFs due to reserved characters, encoding, or how Acrobat interprets them. If all else fails, using a redirect page or URL shortener is often the cleanest workaround.
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