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 1.3 : link-cloaking-plugin.zip (9 KB)
Requirements :
- WordPress 2.2 – 2.8.4
mod_rewrite. If “pretty permalinks” work on your blog then you probably have this already.
Hmmm. I copied and pasted it as it shows up. When I view the source, there are no other tags associated with the href. I dunno – I’ll put some echo’s in and see where it’s dropping out. Maybe there’s another filter that’s doing something before it gets to the link cloaker.
Your plugin works fine on my site. everything except the affiliate link I have placed on the sidebar – on the home page. I think it may be because there is a configuration page for the theme that I am using which allows be to place the image location and re-direct link. I have set to cloak all pages by default. I tried adding at the end. did not work. any help? thanks.
The plugin doesn’t currently cloak links outside of post content (e.g. sidebars, comments, page header of footer). But due to popular demand, this feature will be added in the next version.
I am having the same problem with 2.8.4.
I have checked the .htaccess and the code is above the wordpress code.
I am getting 404’s aswell – does it conflict with phplinkdirectory?
I’m not aware of any conflicts with that plugin. Have you tried deactivating phplinkdirectory temporarily and seeing if you still get 404 on cloaked links?
[...] Link Cloaking Plugin for WordPress [...]
Hi,
I use the plugin about a year but never had cloak a link from ebay.
After having made it the plugin crashed and will not let me delete the link with the cloak i had before.
I uninstalled the plugin and reinstall again and everything was equal. I can no longer use the plugin at this site.
Someone can help me.
Regards
Unfortunately this version of the plugin doesn’t delete the saved cloaked links when you uninstall it. You need to manually remove the link from the wp_cloaked_links table in your database (this can be done with something like phpMyAdmin).
If you could post the eBay link here, I might be able to find out why it crashes the plugin, and fix the bug.
I just have to thank you for writing such a great and simple to use application. More people should know about this. I have spent hours and hours trying all sorts of cloaking plugins, you name it I downloaded it and isntalled it.
Basically every single plugin for wordpress I have tried and yours is the best.
The only flaw was that it didn’t open links in a new window, but that simple code that White Shadow posted does the trick, and it wasn’t scary at all to do. Phew.
Thanks again, great job.
OneMoreGadget
Now if I could only find a plugin that automatically fixes typos…ahem.
hello,
What can i do by custom_fields?
When i mouse over the link it is cloaked, but I get a 404. I deactivated all plug ins and still get 404. Any ideas?
Do you have a caching plugin installed? It might be serving the old cached version of the page.
Try going to the target (uncloaked) URL directly; maybe it’s simply down?
Sidebar links would be nice
Other than that, a nice handy plug-in.
That’s possible in the premium version of the plugin
Hi White Shadow!
I am very curious about the premium version of Link Cloaking. Just one question as I am currently using the free Link Cloaking Plugin with manual cloaking: can I just switch to the premium version with auto cloaking or are there any preparations neccessary I should be aware of?
That depends on what you mean by “manual cloaking” :
If you mean using the <!–cloak–> tag to specify which links get cloaked, then you can just switch to the premium version with zero hassle. The new plugin is backwards-compatible and will continue to cloak the tagged links.
If you’re referring to the “static” links feature instead, there will be one additional step necessary after you’ve installed the premium version : you’ll need to go to Tools -> Cloaked Links -> Named and click the “Import” button to import those links in the new version’s database.
In general, the update process is intended to be as painless as possible, but if you have any problems you can always ask me
I am using Wordpress 2.8.4. I have set up a new site with just a home page and one post, but when I click on this post it seems to default to the home page and that’s the URL that is shown. I have set up test posts so that I have several and they all do the same thing. I have tried the suggested remedy of putting the code above the wordpress code in the .htaccess file, but still the only page displaying is the home page, no matter which post I click on. And, whenever I update my permalinks the code is reinserted in its original position below the wordpress code, so that I then have the code both above and below the wordpress code.
I have deactivated all other plugins and reverted to the wordpress default theme and this problem only occurs when your plugin is activated. The plugin does cloak my affiliate links, but it seems to be diverting all post URLs to the home page.
I love what this plugin does – do you have a solution for this problem?
Seems like multiple users have been having this problem recently, but I haven’t been able to reproduce it on my own site(s). Could you give me the URL of your site in question so I can run some tests? You can send it via email ( whiteshadow@w-shadow.com ) if you don’t want to reveal it publicly.
Thanks for looking into this. I’ve sent you an email.
We installed your excellent plugin but the cloaked links all open in the same window. We want the links to open in a new window or tab instead.
We are using the “Cloak All Links” option, because editing the thousands of links in all our posts would be unworkable..
Is there a way to have them all open in a new window or a new tab?
Not in the free version, sorry.
Have dropped you an email as I’m getting the 404 error aswell!
Actually cancel my help, like a plonker I didn’t read all the “Read Me” file and hadn;t manually updated the .htaccess file. It all works OK now
Oh well, I’m glad that it works. Please disregard my email that I sent literally five seconds before you posted that comment
If I were to use the default which would cloak all links… some of my links are inserted for better seo (anchor text links to internal pages) would google still see them as anchor text links?
Internal links are excluded from cloaking by default, even if you use the “Cloak all links” setting. You would have to remove your domain name from the exclusion list in Settings -> Link Cloaker to enable internal link cloaking.
But to answer your actual question – yes, I think they would still count as anchor text links even if they were cloaked.
None of the sites I put in the exceptions box are excluded, including my site. What should I do? I really like that feature.
Excellent plugin, thank you! I had trouble with it at first, but after reading through some of these comments I realized that, like a previous commenter I had not read the ReadMe file and so hadn’t updated my permalinks. Once I did that, everything seems to be working beautifully! Thank you for a great plugin!
[...] Link-Cloaking-Plugin : It is easy to install and use. And it doesn’t use JavaScript so it will work even for visitors that have disabled JS. In addition it is pretty much well-supported by its developer. [...]