I think the second form is just expressed poorly in the tooltip. Its structure should be the same as on other boards:
[ url=http://www.amazon.com ]Amazon[ /url ]
My problem is that on my LCD screen I can't see a very obvious difference in the text. Looks like it's light grey if it's a link you haven't visited and black if it's a link you have visited:
AmazonThis link is black but your vldyson.com link looks lighter than the normal text to me.
I was thinking blue would be more obvious than grey or black.