Link Cloaking Plugin for WordPress
I’ve created a plugin for WordPress that can cloak outgoing links in your posts and/or pages.
Features
- Choose what to cloak – all links, only the links you specify or no links at all.
- Choose where to cloak – posts, pages or both.
- Configure the URL – you can set the “prefix” part of the URL (see examples below).
- Exception list – links pointing to domains in this list will not be cloaked. For example, this is useful if you have chosen to cloak all links but don’t want to cloak the links to your own domains.
- Compatible with all browsers – the link cloaker plugin doesn’t use JavaScript so it will work even for visitors that have disabled JS.
- “Smart” cloaking – relative, ambiguous or malformed URLs will not be cloaked. Better safe than sorry.
- As of version 1.1, static link cloaking.
New! The premium version of this plugin is now available and includes several new features :
- Cloak links in any part of your site, including the comment section and the sidebar.
- Five new cloaking types – for example, you can display the cloaked URL in a frame, or use a special redirect that hides the referrer.
- Improved link management and click statistics.
- Free automatic updates.
- And more. Check out EclipseCloaker.com for complete details.
Examples
Here’s a link explicitly tagged for cloaking -
<a href="http://evil-guide.tripod.com/"><!--cloak-->A Cloaked Link</a>
And here’s what it looks like in the post – A Cloaked Link
If you have configured the plugin to cloak all links (the default) you don’t need the <!–cloak–> tag inside your links.
Installation
- Download the link-cloaking-plugin.zip file.
- Unzip the file.
- Upload the `link-cloaking-plugin` folder to the `/wp-content/plugins/` directory.
- Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
- (Optional) Go to Options -> Link Cloaking and modify the default settings to your liking.
- Re-save your permalink settings to insert the plugin’s link redirection code to the WordPress .htaccess file :
- WP 2.7 and above : Go to Settings -> Permalinks and click “Save Changes”.
- Older versions of WP : Go to Options -> Permalinks and click “Update Permalinks”.
Download
Version 1.4.1 : link-cloaking-plugin.zip (9 KB)
Requirements :
- WordPress 2.2 – 2.9
mod_rewrite. If “pretty permalinks” work on your blog then you probably have this already.
You could uncheck the “Nofollow cloaked links” box in the plugin’s settings.
Also, do the links that are nofollowed incorrectly actually work when you click them? If not, what URL do they show?
Thanks for the quick response! . . . I thought of that, but I’d prefer to keep them nofollow. I also checked to see if the links worked before I wrote the first time. They all went to my home page.
I did some more testing, and I got it to work. But . . .
Even though the domain, in all three forms, is in the exception box, it is getting cloaked as if it were an affiliate link if I choose to add alt text and set it to open in a new window (using the link button in the visual view).
If I simply type in the url, it does not cloak and does not add the nofolo tag.
So that’s where the glitch seems to be.
The problem is with setting it to open in a new window. I do that and it gets cloaked and nofolo. I tried adding just the alt tag and that worked fine.
This sounds similar to a problem that another user had. It should be fixed in the latest version of the plugin; download it here.
Thanks! I’m going to update it now and see if that fixes it. The one and only good thing about my procrastination problem is that I didn’t have much content on my site to sift through. (The bad thing, is I didn’t have much content…lol) Anyway, I’m just glad I got rid of all those nofollows.
[...] Cloaking Plugin Mit dem “Link Cloaking Plugin” kann man entweder alle oder nur extra markierte Links “verstecken”. Dafür [...]
I also installed this plugin and like it. But there is a little problem: it isn’t working for all links. Most link work as they should but there are a few that simply redirect back to my front page.
I think there is a bug in the regexp? Could somebody maybe take a look at this?
Could you give me an example? Post the URL of the page where you have the problematic links here, and I’ll take a look.
I suppose I won’ be able to post more than one URL here without being blocked by a spam filter so I send you a mail with some example URLs.
Maybe this has been asked before but will it automatically cloak rss feeds that are pulled into a web site? I got it working for my regular links but not rss feeds. That would be great if it did.
I’m guessing the RSS feeds are pulled in by a plugin. Unfortunately, the free version of the cloaker doesn’t really work with links created by other plugins. You could try the premium version, though
So, are you saying that Eclipse Link Cloaker will cloak rss feeds? If so, I’ll buy it.
Yep.
(To be completely honest : I haven’t tested it with an RSS feed plugin. I’m 99% sure it’ll work, but if it doesn’t, I’ll give you a full refund.)
OK, I took the plunge the other day and purchased Eclipse Link Cloaker because of the rss feeds I use on a lot of my sites and so far so good! There are a couple quirks or options I’d like to see built in but it does what it’s suppose to do and does it well. I can suck in feeds to my sites and the links look like they are part of the site. Sweet! I’m actually thinking of promoting Eclipse Link Cloaker as an affiliate. Anyway, that’s my review if it helps. Thanks.
Great, I’m glad it worked for you.
What additional options would you like to see? I’m generally very open to feature suggestions.
Well the one option that would be nice is to be able to shut off the cloaking for the blogroll (or links) widget. I post links to authority sites to show search engines that my site is not all about me
. Maybe it would be easier to tweak the code in wp rather tweaking your plugin. Either way, I still like it and it was worth the purchase.
Regards
Well, you could add the link domain names to the exception list (in Settings -> Link Cloaker).
Duh! You’re right. That’s what I’ll do. Thanks.
I am brand new to setting up wordpress sites. I see there are lots of challenges people have with the process, and yet I have been told this is quite essential for affiliate marketing. Is there a dummy proof way to PLUG IN or dummy instructions? Signed WP DUMMY
See Managing Plugins for detailed instructions on how to install plugins. You could also browse around the rest of WordPress Codex a bit, there’s a lot of useful information in there.
This plug-in rocks! Only wanted something to cloak my links and have my domain name first then the affiliate link come after. Just what I was looking for.
However, none of my sidebar links are cloaked. Is it possible to do that?
Thanks,
- Marc
The free version only cloaks links in posts. However, there’s a premium version that can cloak links in any part of your site, including the sidebar
[...] Link Cloaking Plugin [...]
I’m having trouble getting the plugin to work – it’s installed fine and I think I’ve configured it correctly, updated .htaccess etc.
When clicking on a cloaked link in the format “http://domain.com/goto/link/12/1″ I just get my 404 page.
Any ideas?
Take a look at the .htaccess and make sure the plugin’s code is at the top of the file. The cloaker’s code block is marked by the comment “Link Cloaking Plugin BEGINS”.
Perfect thanks! Wordpress had added it’s own code above the plugin code.
Your free plugin works great, and I think I would like to purchase your paid version.
But I noticed on the free version that even though my links appear cloaked when you click on the link and are redirected to the affiliate page, the hop link appears in the URL.
Does this still happen with the paid version? It would be nice not to display any affiliate info.
Thanks
Billy
The paid version supports several different cloaking types, including one that lets you also cloak the address bar URL. You can find more information about the cloaking types on this page (scroll down to the “Cloaking Type” section).
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Thanks for this plugin, it has the features I have been looking for as a WP plugin that I need for a few blogs.
Other cloaking plugins have not lived up to their promises so far, so this is well appreciated.
May have to upgrade!