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.
Check some of the comments above. You probably need to move the plugin code in .htaccess to the top of that file.
[...] W-Shadow developed a Link Cloaking Plugin for WordPress and is pretty much well-supported by its developer. I suppose it’s a nice alternative to other “affiliate link manager” (as they like to call themselves, but they’re just fancy words for masking or cloaking links! ) scripts out there, and it seems pretty easy to install, although from reading the comments it also looks like you need to meddle a bit with your htaccess file to make it really work well. [...]
[...] into a clickable link. You might want to use a link cloaking plugin for WordPress such as this : ø Link Cloaking Plugin for WordPress | W-Shadow.com ø Highlighting sales, special offers, discount codes etc should help especially if they are [...]
hey, nice and neat plugin. Thank you!
I’ve been trying this plugin here
http://www.hyperhigh.co.uk/orbounder-trampoline.html
but every click sends me back to the home page
Without the plugin activated it sends me to the right place – any advice is much appreciated!
I’ve looked at your page. The links redirect back to the homepage because the plugin can’t find the original (uncloaked) link in the post.
This can happen if the original link was created by another plugin, or if it uses some unusual code (as opposed to the normal <a href=’….’>lalala</a> way).
ah I see, yeah the post is pulling some of the information from a database using PHP so that could be the problem. thanks for taking a look.
Hi Techs,
i have a blog where i publish Freeware posts (http://www.telebajar.com) .
I am looking for a wp plugin to wrap
the URL´s to the download sites so that i link to a cloaked URL and i can avoid to have broken links to non existing download URLs (outdated)
a good example is sourceforge.net whre the download links and the mirros are always changing. Do you think this plugin will be useful for this?
Thank a lot in advance
Telebajador
You could use the static cloaking feature to do this. Alternatively, you could use a plugin that checks for broken links.
Hi
Trying out the plugin now and like it so far!
But one thing, is it possible to use it whitout the prototype js?
prototype.js is only necessary if you use “static” cloaked links – it’s used on the AJAX-y link editing screen. Other kinds of cloaked links – like those marked with <–cloak–> – don’t need any JavaScript.
Ok. Thanks for the answer, will try to take out the pototype then
And thanks again for a nice plugin!
I’m stupid hehe.. Did not manage to remove prototype..
Could I ask for som pointers in what to edit? If it aint to much
Thanks
Comment out this line:
in wplc_link_cloaking_plugin.php. It’s around line 148.
There’s other stuff that could/should be removed as well, but the above line is the only one you need to remove if you just want to prevent the plugin from adding prototype.js inside the <head> tags.
I hope that makes sense
Woks like a charm! Thanks a milion!
Does the plugin work with 2.5?
I had it running on a blog using 2.3.3 but since upgrading its no longer working..
It works on the WP 2.5 blog that I tested it with, but you might need to update permalinks again.
Thanks, i update the permalinks and its working again.
Many thanks
Thanks for this plugin!!
Hey, great plugin you got here.
I’ve been searching for this like forever.
Installed and works like a charm.
One question though, can it parse or cloak the affiliate url on referral image ads?
If so, can you explain how to do this?
Thanks.
If the image ad is simply a normal linked image in a post or page, then yes, the plugin should be able to cloak it automatically.
If the ad is something complex, like Flash, JavaScript or an IFrame, or if it is located somewhere else – e.g. in the sidebar – then the plugin won’t cloak it.
I got some 125×125 ads on my blog, when you hover on them, you will see the url. So, I want to cloak those links, is that possible?
If not then I would have to create individual files and redirect the link manually.
I’m going to assume you mean they are not in your posts. In that case, you could use static cloaking for them. But yes, it involves some manual work.
Well, I thought static cloaking is already in this plugin as per your post said?
Thank, nevertheless it is still a great plugin.
It is. The “manual work” refers setting up each cloaked link separately
Edit: Okay, let me expand on that. You can go to Manage -> Cloaked Links and add any referral links that you want cloaked. Then you can get the cloaked URL for any of those by clicking the appropriate “show cloaked url” link on that page. Finally, you need to modify your image ads to use the cloaked URLs instead of the original referral links.
Hello I found your plugin page on the GFY board, the thread start with this post below. Does your plugin hide affiliate links from search engines and prevent the leaking of pagerank like this script below?
____________________________________________
Tip: Affiliate link redirects – Earn more money
It’s friday and im in a good mood so thought i’d share this little tip with for any blog owners/site owners that have a lot of affiliate links on their pages.
If you aren’t already redirecting them, well you should be and here’s how:
Create a PHP file with the following code and your desired affiliate code/text.
PHP Code:
——————————————————————————–
‘ http://www.realitykings.com/main.htm?id=fapgallery&p=clean‘,
‘college-fuckfest’ => ‘http://signupsb.triplexcash.com/cgi/click?account=560307&site=2&program=2′
);
if (array_key_exists($_GET['id'], $path))
header(‘Location: ‘ . $path[$_GET['id']]);
?>
——————————————————————————–
Save it as link.php
Then in your .htaccess file (create one if you dont have one) add:
Code:
——————————————————————————–
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^link/([/_0-9a-zA-Z-]+)$ link.php?id=$1
——————————————————————————–
Now in this example i used a realitykings.com affiliate link with the anchor text reality kings.
To include that link on my pages i would just add a link to:
http://www.domain.com/link/reality-kings
When clicked that will redirect to the sponsor link
Remember to block the /link folder in your robots.txt file
Benefits of this technique:
1. SEO benefits – google isnt fond of too many affiliate codes on landing pages and it also helps prevent bleeding or diluting of your pagerank score.
2. Prevent any pc tools or other malware stripping out or replacing your affiliate code.
3. Earn more money!
for example today’s nastydollars bonus day all i did was alter a few URL’s in the link.php file and now all my inthevip/vipcrew/ links all go through the reality kings tours.
Tomorrow i can just re-edit that file rather than the 100′s of hard coded links on my sites.
___________________________________________________________
Yes, the plugin can do that. It can add the rel=”nofollow” attribute to cloaked links, which will prevent them from passing PR. You can enable this feature by going to Options -> Link Cloaking and checking “Nofollow cloaked links”.
You could also do this by blocking the “link prefix” in robots.txt. By default the prefix is “goto”; it can be configured in the page mentioned above. This is basically the same thing the forum post suggests.
Any way to make it work with the alinks plugin? It cloaks all the links created by alinks, but often if a post got 2,3 identical links only the first one works and rest kicks you back to the root of the site.
Probably there is a way, but I’m currently not inclined to seek it out.
What should i add with robots.txt prevent the search engines from spidering those links
block them in robots.txt with:
User-agent: *
Disallow: ?????