Link Cloaking Plugin for WordPress
This is a plugin for WordPress that can automatically cloak outgoing links in your posts and/or pages.
Download plugin
(Note: May not be compatible with the latest version of Eclipse Link Cloaker.)
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.
- 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.
- If desired, you can also add your own cloaked links manually.
Examples
Lets say you’ve got a link you want to be cloaked.
<a href="http://example.com/?affiliate=me">Cloak Me</a>
Once you install the plugin, it will automatically, without requiring any configuration, turn it into a cloaked link when it’s displayed to a visitor:
<a href="http://yoursite.com/goto/Cloak_Me/12/34">Cloak Me</a>
Here’s a live example: Cloak Me
As an alternative to the fully automatic cloaking, you can switch the plugin to “selective cloaking” and tag the links you want to cloak manually:
<a href="http://example.com/?affiliate=me">Cloak Me<!--cloak--></a>
Note: The plugin does not actually edit your posts or permanently modify your links. Instead, it switches them on-the-fly whenever someone views them on your site. When editing a post in the admin panel, you will see the original, uncloaked link.
Download
Version 1.8.4 : link-cloaking-plugin.zip (16 KB)
Requirements :
- WordPress 2.8 – 3.3
mod_rewrite. If “pretty permalinks” work on your blog then you probably have this already.
(Note: May not be compatible with the latest version of Eclipse Link Cloaker.)
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.
FAQ
Why are some of my links not getting cloaked?
The most common possibilities are:
- Links in the sidebar, header, comment area and so on can’t be cloaked by the free version of the plugin. It only works on links in page/post body. Upgrade to the premium version to cloak links anywhere on the page.
- Links added using other plugins, theme features or custom fields are also supported only in the premium version.
- JavaScript links, as well as Flash and context-sensitive ads are not supported by any version of this plugin.
Why are none of my links getting cloaked?
- If using “Seletive cloaking”, make sure you have actually marked some links with the
<!--cloak-->tag. - Double-check that the links in question aren’t added or modified by plugins, the theme, or custom fields.
- Contact me. You might have found a bug.
The exception list doesn’t seem to work. What could be the problem?
Make sure to enter only domain names in the “Exceptions” box. For example, given a link like “http://example.com/directory/page.html”, the domain name is the “example.com” part. So to prevent the plugin from cloaking that link, add “example.com” (sans quotes) to the “Exceptions” box. Entering the full URL or “http://example.com/” will not work.
Additionally, if some of your links point to example.com and some to www.example.com, you will need to add both of those to the exceptions.
Why do some cloaked links redirect me back to my homepage?
Most likely, your post(s) contain links created or modified by other plugins, the theme, or custom fields. Either remove those links, or upgrade to the premium version.
Why do some cloaked links redirect me back to my homepage?
See the previous question.
Why do cloaked links display a “Not Found” error?
- Make sure you’re using pretty permalinks.
- Your .htaccess might be out of date. To update it, go to Settings -> Permalinks and click “Save Changes”.
- Your hosting company may be blocking browser access to PHP files in the /wp-content/plugins/ directory, usually as a security measure. The free version of the plugin is not compatible with these hosts. Consider using the premium version instead.
I have a question not addressed in this FAQ. What should I do?
Either leave a comment below, or email me directly. My email address can be found on the contact page.
Related posts :
Subscribe via RSS
Get Updates by Email
Hi, I’ve just installed the plugin and the cloaking looks to be working but it’s not redirecting – just goes to a 404. I have updated the permalinks and I’ve also tried altering the directories in the .htaccess to see if it makes a difference but no luck so far, this is what I currently have in the .htaccess file
# Link Cloaker Plugin BEGIN
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule goto/([^/]*)/([0-9]+)/([0-9]+)/? wp-content/plugins/link-cloaking-plugin/wplc_redirector.php?post_id=$2&link_num=$3&cloaked_url=$0 [L]
RewriteRule goto/([^/]+)[/]? wp-content/plugins/link-cloaking-plugin/wplc_redirector.php?name=$1&cloaked_url=$0 [L]
# Link Cloaker Plugin ENDS
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
The .htaccess looks fine at first glance, but it also appears you don’t have the latest version of the plugin (1.2.6). Download and install it again, then update permalinks, too. The latest version uses slightly different rewrite rules that should be more compatible with some non-standard WP installations.
[…] […]
What is No Follow cloaked links?
This option inserts the
rel="nofollow"into the cloaked links. Nofollow’ed links are ignored by search engines, which can be sometimes useful for SEO purposes. You might nofollow a link if you don’t want search engines to count it as a “vote” for the linked site.Maybe I missed the whole picture here, but if I write an article in wordpress and I’m linking to an affiliate, I just link whatever text I like with the affiliate url. How does this plugin do anything different than that? I would like to hide the url when I get to my affiliate! Did I miss something? I’m probably too dumb to understand the difference.
When you use a normal link the user can hover the cursor over the link and see that it goes to an affiliate site. With this plugin, the link will look as if it points to another page on your site (e.g. “yoursite.com/goto/1/2”).
However, the user will see the URL of the affiliate site when he actually goes there. If you want to prevent that you’d need to open the link inside a frame, which is currently not possible with this plugin.
Hi
Just installed the plugin and it works great. However, I have an issue. I want the destination url to NOT reveal the affiliate link but just to show the merchant’s url. For example, if I cloaked http://www.clickbank.com/aff?3 to http://www.abc.com/goto/clickbank/, when I click on the cloaked link, it brings me to the merchant’s page with my ugly affiliate link showing on the browser url. This is the part that I’m most worried about in terms of aff hijacking. Is there a way to have the destination url to not show the aff link but just the merchant’s url?
THanks very much
Txn
Not really. Only the merchant him/herself can implement this – they could use a redirect to go to record whatever aff. data they need and then send the visitor to a “clean” URL. It’s not hard to do but many sellers just aren’t that tech savvy/don’t care.
Alternatively, there’s the frame idea I posted about above, but it’s not implemented yet.
[…] Link Cloaking Plugin […]
Great plugin! Thank you! One future suggestion that would be great is to be able to categorize the statics links (i.e. I’d like to basically reproduce my categories list into the static links so that I can easily find the ones I need.)
Hello again! I just posted yesterday, but I have a question. Is there any way we can edit the affiliate link without having to delete the old one and re-add it?
Sorry, that’s not possible in this version.
I’ve downloaded the plugin and, while it cloaks the affiliate banners, it doesnt cloak the affiliate banner ads.
Can I just confirm that it only cloaks the ads and not the “javascript” ones too?
Cheers
Ignore the above as the use of html has made my post confusing!!!
I’m trying to find out if linkcloak will cloak script language javascipt banner ads, as it doesn’t appear to do so with my site?
Cheers
It doesn’t cloak javascript ads. In fact, I suspect there is no way to cloak script-generated ads efficiently unless you write a custom cloaking script for each ad service.
Having some problems with the pluing in WordPress 2.7.
When plugin is activated, I find I am unable to upload images, add catergories or tags. Deactivating the pluing allows it though.
This could happen if the plugin outputs an error message when loaded during an AJAX request. I’ll need to know the error message to fix it, but extracting the message from the AJAX stuff can be a bit tricky.
Personally, I’d go with a HTTP sniffer and examine the traffic manually. But that might be overkill in your case, so here’s something simpler to try – check your WordPress directories for
error_logor similarily named files. In many server configurations PHP errors are recorded in these files, so you may find the error message in there. Check the root directory, wp-admin, and the plugin’s directory.i’m getting the same 404 errors with that this guy is, on the latest 2.7.1:
February 20, 2009 at 15:08
Hi, I’ve just installed the plugin and the cloaking looks to be working but it’s not redirecting – just goes to a 404. I have updated the permalinks and I’ve also tried altering the directories in the .htaccess to see if it makes a difference but no luck so far, this is what I currently have in the .htaccess file
—-
i did everything according to your directions. I had this issue before and fixed it but I don’t recall what I did to make it happen.. Can you assist? Thx for this killer plugin.
Can you post the relevant part of the .htaccess here? It would be much easier to figure it out if I knew what the rewrite rules look like for your site. (You can also email it to me at whiteshadow [at] w-shadow [dot] com if you don’t want to disclose this information publicly)