Gossamer Forum: Products: Gossamer Links: Development, Plugins and Globals: Hide affiliate links

Novice (20 posts)

Sep 11, 2007, 8:36 PM

Post #1 of 22

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Hide affiliate links

Hello,

I would like to add some affiliate links to my site.
Most affiliate links tend to have a long URL which doesn’t look that good.

I’m looking for a way to "shorten" the URL displayed in link.html

Example:
http://affiliatesite.com/sites.php?id=re_ps_dave5_A_2_A&site=dsd&tmpl=11

To:
http://affiliatesite.com/sites.php?…

I think the best way is to setup a limit to the number of characters displayed. Like 20 characters after the "http://" . All characters after will be replaced by ”…”

Any others ideas would be appreciated.

Thank you,
Dave

Sep 12, 2007, 1:48 AM

Veteran / Moderator (18441 posts)

Sep 12, 2007, 1:48 AM

Post #2 of 22

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Re: [Kool] Hide affiliate links In reply to

Hi,

The easiest way, would be to "split" it at the ?, so anything after that doesn't get shown. Here's how you could do it:

trim_url_down

Code:
sub { 
 my $url = $_[0]; 
 my @tmp = split /\?/, $url; 
 return $tmp[0]; 
}

Then just call with <%trim_url_down($URL)%>

Hope that helps.

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Sep 12, 2007, 4:16 AM

Clint

User (387 posts)

Sep 12, 2007, 4:16 AM

Post #3 of 22

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Re: [Kool] Hide affiliate links In reply to

Hi Kool:

I actually would recommend you don't use the url at all, but instead jump.cgi. There is no value in showing the url, and if you are actually aiming at trying to earn some income from affiliate sales etc, research has shown that many people will either not click on the link OR they will modify it.

Regards,

Clint
--------------------------
http://AffiliatesDirectory.com
The Affiliate Programs Directory

Sep 12, 2007, 6:36 AM

Veteran / Moderator (18441 posts)

Sep 12, 2007, 6:36 AM

Post #4 of 22

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Re: [Clint] Hide affiliate links In reply to

Hi,

I think he's trying to just show a URL, rather that the full link :)

i.e:

Title
Description
http://www.domain.com

..or similar :)

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Sep 12, 2007, 10:39 AM

Novice (20 posts)

Sep 12, 2007, 10:39 AM

Post #5 of 22

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Re: [Andy] Hide affiliate links In reply to

Thank you very much for the help guys!

I’m aware that some people will not click on URL/affiliate link.

Removing the URL completely is an option, but I’m not sure if showing a partial domain would be better.

Andy, if I want to show only the domain, what would be the code (including the .com. .net etc)? replace"?" with "/"

Split at the "?" will not work for all affiliate links. Some don’t have it.

where do I place the code <%trim_url_down($URL)%>

Thanks,

dave

Last edited by:

Kool: Sep 12, 2007, 10:41 AM

Sep 13, 2007, 2:09 AM

Veteran / Moderator (18441 posts)

Sep 13, 2007, 2:09 AM

Post #6 of 22

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Re: [Kool] Hide affiliate links In reply to

Hi,

You would just do:

Code:
sub { 
  my $url = $_[0]; 
  my @tmp = split /\//, $url; 
  return $tmp[2]; 
}

Also, that will split the http:// bit up (thus why I changed it to $tmp[2], instead of $tmp[0]). If you want to use the http:// bit in the front, you would just need to change:

Code:
  return $tmp[2];

..to:

Code:
  return qq|http://| . $tmp[2];

Hope that helps.

BTW, please try not to use bold in your whole post, it makes them a bit sore on the eyes :(

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Sep 13, 2007, 5:10 AM

Novice (20 posts)

Sep 13, 2007, 5:10 AM

Post #7 of 22

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Re: [Andy] Hide affiliate links In reply to

Thank you Andy! I'll try it.

Sep 13, 2007, 11:14 AM

Alba

Enthusiast (567 posts)

Sep 13, 2007, 11:14 AM

Post #8 of 22

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Re: [Kool] Hide affiliate links In reply to

Do you need to display the link URLs at all?

Sep 13, 2007, 2:31 PM

Novice (20 posts)

Sep 13, 2007, 2:31 PM

Post #9 of 22

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Re: [Alba] Hide affiliate links In reply to

Alba, do you suggest not showing the URL?

My intention is to trim the URL after the .com

Sep 13, 2007, 2:46 PM

Alba

Enthusiast (567 posts)

Sep 13, 2007, 2:46 PM

Post #10 of 22

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Re: [Kool] Hide affiliate links In reply to

Quote:

do you suggest not showing the URL?

Just a thought, I removed the code from my templates.

Jun 4, 2009, 8:50 AM

User (65 posts)

Jun 4, 2009, 8:50 AM

Post #11 of 22

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Re: Hide affiliate links In reply to

So how do we hide an affiliate link without making changes to its structure such as:
<*a href="http://click.affiliateexampleonly [] com/fs-bin/click?id=S15msfxNCM4&offerid=12345&subid=0"><*IMG alt="Savings by Affiliate" border="0" width="88" height="31" src="http://click.affiliateexampleonly [] com/fs-bin/show?id=S15msfxNCM4&bids=12345&gridnum=7&catid=-1&subid=0"*></a*>

... and how should the affiliate link look inside the code?
http://www.hopeforyou.com

Last edited by:

HopeForYou: Jun 4, 2009, 8:53 AM

Jun 4, 2009, 9:23 AM

Veteran / Moderator (18441 posts)

Jun 4, 2009, 9:23 AM

Post #12 of 22

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Re: [HopeForYou] Hide affiliate links In reply to

Erm, that looks like weird HTML (all kinda weird charachters, as well as * in it)

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Jun 4, 2009, 9:25 AM

User (65 posts)

Jun 4, 2009, 9:25 AM

Post #13 of 22

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Post deleted by HopeForYou In reply to

Last edited by:

HopeForYou: Jun 4, 2009, 9:28 AM

Jun 4, 2009, 9:36 AM

Veteran / Moderator (18441 posts)

Jun 4, 2009, 9:36 AM

Post #14 of 22

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Re: [HopeForYou] Hide affiliate links In reply to

Well, doesn't help us - as we don't know the proper format (i.e is the image just a small pixel, with a text link - or an actual image)

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Jun 4, 2009, 9:50 AM

User (65 posts)

Jun 4, 2009, 9:50 AM

Post #15 of 22

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Re: [Andy] Hide affiliate links In reply to

Andy wrote:

Well, doesn't help us - as we don't know the proper format (i.e is the image just a small pixel, with a text link - or an actual image)

Please standby for an e-mail.

Thanks!
http://www.hopeforyou.com

Jun 4, 2009, 9:58 AM

Veteran / Moderator (18441 posts)

Jun 4, 2009, 9:58 AM

Post #16 of 22

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Re: [HopeForYou] Hide affiliate links In reply to

Ok, so what you need to do - is add 2 new fields:

1) CleanURL CHAR(255) "Text" type field
2) ImageURL CHAR(255) "Text" type field

Then, when adding a link - you would enter the affiliate URL (i.e what they click on), in the "URL" field. Then, the CleanURL would be what you want to show them. Finally, if you have an image that needs showing - the image URL would be put in ImageURL.

The, in link.html - find stuff like:

Code:
<%URL%>

...and change to:

Code:
<%if CleanURL%><%CleanURL%><%else%><%URL%><%endif%>

Then, wherever you want the image to show - have:

Code:
<%if ImageURL%><img src="<%ImageURL" /><%endif%>

That simple.

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Jun 4, 2009, 9:58 AM

Veteran / Moderator (18441 posts)

Jun 4, 2009, 9:58 AM

Post #17 of 22

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Re: [Andy] Hide affiliate links In reply to

BTW, this assumes you are using jump.cgi .

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Jun 4, 2009, 10:04 AM

User (65 posts)

Jun 4, 2009, 10:04 AM

Post #18 of 22

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Re: [Andy] Hide affiliate links In reply to

Andy wrote:

BTW, this assumes you are using jump.cgi .

Cheers

jump.cgi is being used at this time.

Thanks!
http://www.hopeforyou.com

Jun 4, 2009, 4:11 PM

User (65 posts)

Jun 4, 2009, 4:11 PM

Post #19 of 22

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Re: [HopeForYou] Hide affiliate links In reply to

This seems to do the trick.

Thank you!
http://www.hopeforyou.com

Jun 4, 2009, 5:04 PM

User (65 posts)

Jun 4, 2009, 5:04 PM

Post #20 of 22

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Re: [Andy] Hide affiliate links In reply to

Andy wrote:

Code:
<%URL%>

...and change to:

Code:
<%if CleanURL%><%CleanURL%><%else%><%URL%><%endif%>

Then, wherever you want the image to show - have:

Code:
<%if ImageURL%><img src="<%ImageURL" /><%endif%>

That simple.

Cheers

The ImageURL code was place into the home page and the image didn't showing up.

Any ideas?
http://www.hopeforyou.com

Jun 4, 2009, 7:34 PM

User (65 posts)

Jun 4, 2009, 7:34 PM

Post #21 of 22

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Re: [HopeForYou] Hide affiliate links In reply to

How can we get the CleanURL and ImageURL to work in "include_rightsidebar.html"?
http://www.hopeforyou.com

Jun 4, 2009, 11:31 PM