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.
- Works with plugin-created links.
- 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 Settings -> 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 : go to Settings -> Permalinks and click “Save Changes”.
Download
Version 1.8.2 : link-cloaking-plugin.zip (10 KB)
Requirements :
- WordPress 2.8 – 3.0.1
mod_rewrite. If “pretty permalinks” work on your blog then you probably have this already.
I recently did the auto upgrade for your fantastic plug-in but now for some reason I’m unable to generate a new cloaked link for my static cloaked links? also all of the older cloaked static links have vanished?
@ Steve & others : Consider the premium version, perhaps?
@ roc : Could you elaborate? Are you getting an error message, or is it something else?
Thanks, but i switched to another plugin and its working fine
It simply does nothing now? I type in the name & url and click add and nothing happens? And the previous cloaked static links are gone the tables empty?
So I deactivated the plugin and removed it and re-installed the previous version I have saved locally, and I can’t get it to work again? it does as the new version? weird, huh?
I have been deactivated a previous plug which I upgraded so see if there may have been a conflict but I couldn’t get your plug in to work? It was working as you can see by the proof on the banner ads on the sidebar.
Thanks for the lighting fast reply, btw
The fact that the “Add” button does nothing indicates that there is some kind of a JavaScript problem. Check your browser’s error console for details/error messages. To open the console, go to Tools -> Error Console in Firefox. In IE you need to double-click the error icon in the bottom-left corner of the window instead. Other browsers probably have something similar.
Okay I opened firebug this time and re-entered my data to and it shows the following error in firebug; saveCloakedLink is not defined
http://medicallyfragilechild.com/wp-admin/tools.php?page=link-cloaking-plugin-links
Line 1
I also tried this in chrome:
$(‘myForm’).addEvent(‘submit’, function(e) {
Uncaught TypeError: Property ‘$’ of object [object DOMWindow] is not a function
Judging by the error message from Chrome, the problem is being caused by a different plugin. The link cloaker doesn’t have a line like that anywhere in it’s code, or even a form identified as “myform”.
Try selectively deactivating your other plugins until you find the culprit.
okay I went and found the plugin and disabled it. but I’m still unable to get the static cloak link to work. The error generated in both F.F & Chrome are now reading:
Uncaught ReferenceError: saveCloakedLink is not defined (line 144 of tools.php)
Hmm, try this version.
I still had the same problem after uploading the new version you sent, but I managed to find and fix the error. Turns out, the database table needed to be dropped I went and dropped the table “_cloaked_links” that the plugin creates (after a back up of data of course) and started a fresh install with v1.6 (file you sent me), it created a new table and it works now. for some odd reason it was not allowing the data to be written to the table in the database from the previous version but. it’s all good, thanks I appreciate all your help, you have an awesome lil plugin.
An issue that I’ve seen discussed on my forum recently is whether IE8 blocks the cookie from a cloaked affiliate link by it’s privacy settings. I’m no expert but it seems that this is happening with some cloakers and so we are losing sales.
Does your plugin interfere with cookie setting in IE8?
Also I have no follow selected, but when I look at my links there is no no follow in the code.
Any idea why that may be?
Thanks
The plugin doesn’t touch cookies, so I don’t think it should have any effect on that. However, I haven’t really tested that extensively. If you discover a case where the cookies are blocked when the link is cloaked by this plugin, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.
As for links missing nofollow, could you show me an example?
Hiya i dont think its server related, because 6 of my ten sites it works on and all on same server. its just 4 that dont :-S
Well, I’m out of ideas then.
Hello,
Is it possible to remove Link_Text_Here in http://domain.com/prefix/Link_Text_Here/12/34
Thanks
No. However, you can create “static” cloaked links that have whatever text you choose in place of “Link_Text_Here”. See Tools -> Cloaked Links.
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Thanx again
hello, I installed version 1.6 of the plugin on wp 3.0 but when I post a url example http://www.namesito.com/id56773 is not added. If I insert the url without http:// http://www.namesito.com/id56773 type is added but the hyperlink does not work. I tried with both IE and firefox but the problem is always present. What is the problem?
thanks
Hello,
I seem to be having the same problem as Stefano above when I try to create a static cloaked link. Without http, it will generate a “cloaked link”….though it is not functional. When I enter the entire url, including http://, and click “add”….it will not generate a cloaked link.
All of my other static links created previously remain in place. Some were created as recently as last week. Any advice you could give to resolve this issue would be greatly appreciated. Cheers!
Gah, looks like I need to set up a separate testing site just for PHP4. Or maybe drop PHP4 support.Disregard that, I commented on the wrong post.
All right, perhaps the 1.7 update I just released will help with the “http://” problem. At the very least, it should provide a better indication of what goes wrong when trying to add an URL that contains the protocol prefix.
I’ve been using the plug-in for many months and it has always worked perfectly. I tried to cloak a link today and it no longer works. When I click the tab to ADD, it says Adding link… and just freezes right there and never adds the cloaked link.
I have updated to the new version 1.7 and it still does not work.
Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
I updated the plugin to version 1.7 but still does not work. If I enter the url without http:// it works, but if you insert the link are not added
And no error messages? That’s strange. Version 1.7 should display an error if something goes wrong server-side.
Check the JS console, maybe it’s a bug in there’s a bug in my JavaScript.
I use the Internet when I click on Add Exporer and nothing happens. Where should the error?
Firefox comes with filebug when I add something:
GET http://www.stefanopepi.com/wp-content/plugins/link-cloaking-plugin/wplc_ajax.php?action=add_link&name=dd&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.stefanopepi.com%2
http://www.stefanopepi.com/wp-admin/load-scripts.php?c=1&load=jquery,utils,thickbox&ver=681791909e5bd7a324a42bd282c3a27d
LINE 130
That’s probably not the whole message though, that’s just the URL of the script.
Hmm, this would go a lot faster if I could see the problem first-hand…
Just want to add that I also tried cloaking a link by leaving off the http:// and it will cloak the link. However, when you click on the newly cloaked link, it will take you to an error page not found.
I used Google.com for this test and this is where it took me:
http://successaffiliatemarketing.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/link-cloaking-plugin/google.com
I wonder how much difference there is between the free and paid versions but I have the paid version on 30+ sites and it works perfectly.