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802 Responses to “Link Cloaking Plugin for WordPress”

1. cloudstrif3 from 3magin8.Com says:

   November 13, 2007 at 06:37

   Hello,

   I get this error. Visit my site for an example.

   Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘<‘ in /home/halcyonr/public_html/3magin8/site/2/wp-content/plugins/plugins/wplc_redirector.php on line 39

   This is the same problem I had before when I tried to do it myself. How do you insert an html code into a php file?

   Thanks!

2. White Shadow says:

   November 13, 2007 at 12:41

   PHP code is between “<?php” and “?>”, everything outside these separators will be treated as HTML. You should be OK inserting HTML after the last “?>” in the file. It is also possible to output HTML (or something else) from PHP code by using the echo function.

3. Chirs says:

   November 15, 2007 at 18:43

   Awesome plugin! Just what I’ve been looking for 🙂

   Is it possible to tell the plugin to encode not only the post content but also a custom tag?

   e.g. for ach of my blog posts I have a custom tag called ‘deeplink’ – how can I get the plugin to cloak this?

4. White Shadow says:

   November 15, 2007 at 19:34

   If the tag is added by another plugin and shows up inside the post when the post is displayed, you can’t really cloak it (at least not without some changes to the cloaking plugin… which might lead to new bugs).

   Arrgh, I need more information to really answer your question 😛 Is this tag part of the post or do you enter it in an additional field on the ‘Write Post’ screen? Also, if it’s added by a plugin, which plugin? It would be easier if I could look at the source code.

5. Chirs says:

   November 15, 2007 at 19:57

   Hey, thanks for your quick response.

   Yes, its one of the additional tags that you enter as part of the Write screen.
   I am able to reference it in my templates using:

   ID, “deeplink”, true); ?>

6. White Shadow says:

   November 15, 2007 at 20:14

   Looks like your code example got messed up; you should wrap it in <pre lang=”php”> … </pre> tags for it to display correctly (you even get syntax highlighting then).

   Anyway, since you use it in your templates, there is no other way to cloak the links than to modify both the template code and the cloaking plugin. It’s complex, but doable if you’re sufficiently familiar with PHP and WordPress. I can give you a few hints on what to look for, but you’d be largely on your own.

7. Chirs says:

   November 15, 2007 at 20:33

   This is the code I use to reference the custom field in my templates.

   ID, “Thumbnail”, true); ?>

   Any tips would be much appreciated!

8. Chirs says:

   November 15, 2007 at 20:34

   
php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, "deeplink", true);


9. White Shadow says:

   November 15, 2007 at 21:31

   Hmm, is <pre> not allowed in normal comments? (It works for me, but then I’m the admin of this blog).

   Okay, there are two things you need to do – rewrite the “deeplink” so that it’s cloaked and modify wplc_redirector.php so that it can recognize the links.

   Rewriting the link : I’d replace your template code with something like this –

   $url = get_post_meta($post->ID, "deeplink", true);
   if (isset($ws_link_cloaker)) {
   	$url = get_option('siteurl').'/'.$ws_link_cloaker->options['prefix'].
   			'/deeplink/'.($post->ID)."/0";
   }
   echo $url;
   

   You can put something else in place of the “deeplink” text there, like “info”, “details” or whatever you want. This will create an URL that has the same pattern as other cloaked links, yet can be recognized and treated differently because it ends with a zero (normal cloaked links end with above zero numbers). This code should also gracefully handle the situation when the plugin is no longer active, falling back to uncloaked links.

   Modifying the redirector : you’ll need to edit wplc_redirector.php for this, adding special handling for links that end with zero. This can be done in several ways… Look at the first if block, find code that looks like this –

   $link_count=preg_match_all($wplc_url_pattern, $this_post->post_content, 
   	$matches, PREG_SET_ORDER);
   									
   if($link_count >= $link_num){
   	$url = $matches[$link_num-1][2];
   	$url = str_replace('&','&',$url);
   } else {
   	$url = get_option('siteurl');
   }
   

   I’d do it like this –

   if (0 == $link_num) {
   	$url = get_post_meta($post_id, "deeplink", true);
   } else {
   	$link_count=preg_match_all($wplc_url_pattern, 
   			$this_post->post_content, 
   			$matches, PREG_SET_ORDER);
   	
   	if($link_count >= $link_num){
   		$url = $matches[$link_num-1][2];
   		$url = str_replace('&','&',$url);
   	} else {
   		$url = get_option('siteurl');
   	}
   }
   

   Well, that’s all. Unless I’ve forgotten something, or made some typos there (possible, didn’t check), it should work.

10. Chris says:

    November 16, 2007 at 11:55

    That worked a treat!

    I owe you a beer

11. 3 Easy Ways To Cloak Affiliate Links And Thereby Earn Two Fold | Blogging Tune says:

    December 14, 2007 at 17:18

    […] can check this post for more […]

12. bonafide says:

    December 18, 2007 at 00:18

    ok, I’ve installed the plugin, and it seems to be working. yay! thanks for the work on this.

    What I’d like to know is why your example on link cloaking, ie the how to be evil site, which is promoting a book, doesn’t have the amazon link cloaked to something that looks way nicer?…

    oh, and could you possibly, in your copious spare time, do a single site step by step walkthrough? for all us noobs to the wonderful world of WordPress?…

    thanks for the work!

13. White Shadow says:

    December 18, 2007 at 00:45

    That site isn’t mine, it’s just a random site that I found one day and liked enough to use it as an example here 🙂 I’m in no way affiliated with that website.

    What do you mean with “a single site walkthrough”? Cloaking links on a site that isn’t running on WordPress? Or something else?

14. cloudstrif3 says:

    December 23, 2007 at 20:05

    Thanks again for the help!
    Happy Holidays!

15. Ben says:

    January 4, 2008 at 02:28

    I keep getting a 404 page. This is the page – http://www.smartgeezer.co.uk/2008/rip-curl-hells-bells-reversible-beanie-hat/ – permalinks has been updated, htaccess updated, I’m pretty sure I set it up right.

    Also, the link doesn’t open in a new window, even if I add the relevant code to Line 90.

    Any ideas?

16. Ben says:

    January 4, 2008 at 02:41

    OK, I’ve fixed the opening in a new window (had to remove nofollow in the Link Cloaking options) but not the actual link. It just tries to open the link – http://www.smartgeezer.co.uk/goto/link/68/1 – rather than converting it to the proper cloaked link.

17. White Shadow says:

    January 4, 2008 at 03:04

    I’ve looked at your site and my guess is that the .htaccess rules aren’t working. Can you post the relevant part of your .htaccess here? Anything between “# Link Cloaker Plugin BEGIN” and “# Link Cloaker Plugin ENDS”.

    Alternatively, email it to me at whiteshadow {at} w-shadow (dott) com

18. Ben says:

    January 4, 2008 at 11:38

    # 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

    tx

19. White Shadow says:

    January 4, 2008 at 12:43

    Interesting. The .htaccess looks fine. What’s more, the redirector script itself works OK, as can be verified by visiting this link :
    http://www.smartgeezer.co.uk/wp-content/plugins/link-cloaking-plugin/wplc_redirector.php?post_id=68&link_num=3

    Maybe the rewriting rules don’t get executed. Is that part of .htaccess before or after lines that look like this? –

    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

20. Ben says:

    January 4, 2008 at 21:17

    The whole .htaccess which sits in the root:

    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^smartgeezer.co.uk [NC]
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.smartgeezer.co.uk/$1 [L,R=301]

    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteBase /
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

    # 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