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Need some feedback on my wordpress plugin

by johnnyN
11 replies
I have made a wordpress plugin and would like to get feedback from programmer type people, as well as internet marketers.

The plugin is a link cloaker with a twist.

As far as I know it is the only "true" link cloaker available. I have not seen another plugin that does this, and I have not seen any code at all on the internet that does this either, so it has a unique selling point.

I wanted to see if a few people would try it out, and perhaps suggest upgrades. It is free, but I will probably make a premium version.

I also have not run in to any bugs yet (which is odd) so I want to try to get someone to break it.

Any comments on the instructions, and ease of install and setup would be welcome too.

Here are a couple of ideas I have for the upgrade.
1. Remove the affiliate link telltale from the landing page - hard to explain but here is an example. if you click on a clickbank hoplink, you eventually get to the landing page, but at the end of the URL is ?hop=username which is a dead giveaway, and I would say at least half the people who saw it would clear their cookies and put their own username in. I can make it so that no longer happens.
2. Add the search engine keyword to the end of the hoplink for tracking purposes (you can see which keywords convert).
3. Make the keyword in number 2. encrypted, and have a method to convert back to unencrypted. (I guess download stats from network and dump into a tool to convert).
4. An extra freebie to hide my affiliate site from the network. I am a very suspicious guy, and I don't want the networks looking at my aff site and copying it word for word.

any ideas or comments are welcome.

The plugin is called linkbouncer and my site is at linkbouncer.com , it is an opt-in, but you can just unsubscribe once you have the download if you like.

P.S. any comments on my site and any marketing tips you could give me would be appreciated.
#feedback #plugin #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author colinph970
    I've downloaded it and will try it out!
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    WANT TO FIND BARGAIN ITEMS TO SELL AND MAKE HUGE PROFITS? NEW ARBITRAGE SOFTWARE TOOL IS THE ANSWER!
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  • Profile picture of the author lisag
    Remove the affiliate link telltale from the landing page - hard to explain but here is an example. if you click on a clickbank hoplink, you eventually get to the landing page, but at the end of the URL is ?hop=username which is a dead giveaway, and I would say at least half the people who saw it would clear their cookies and put their own username in. I can make it so that no longer happens.
    That trailing ID is being passed to the site by CB. It's a snap for the page owner to swallow that so it doesn't show up, but most don't bother. If you can develop a plug-in that does that, it would be very cool.
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    -- Lisa G

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    • Profile picture of the author johnnyN
      Originally Posted by lisag View Post

      That trailing ID is being passed to the site by CB. It's a snap for the page owner to swallow that so it doesn't show up, but most don't bother. If you can develop a plug-in that does that, it would be very cool.
      yes this can be done using grey hat methods. It is really cookie stuffing but only occurs on click, so it is not black hat. When I get time I will add that feature in.
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  • Profile picture of the author kcorps
    I have visited your site. It is neat. The color choice for the template is clean so that the information can be understood easily. Well done!
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    • Profile picture of the author johnnyN
      Originally Posted by kcorps View Post

      I have visited your site. It is neat. The color choice for the template is clean so that the information can be understood easily. Well done!
      thanks kcorps. I wanted it to be as clear as possible. Because I get so frustrated when I go to a plugin site and cannot find any information about the plugin.
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  • Profile picture of the author SteveJohnson
    I hope you're really looking for a critique and not a pat on the back, job-well-done fluff comment...I'm not being mean, you've obviously spent a good deal of time on this.

    #1 - what if the user has javascript turned off? Your affiliate links will fail.
    #2 - Google doesn't "give you credit" for linking out to a "relevant" site.
    #3 - if I were a die-hard commission thief, all I'd have to do is look at the page source to discover where the links were going.
    #4 - re: your comment to lisag -- cookie-stuffing will get your account deleted, at clickbank and every other aff program -- and they'll keep the commissions you thought you earned. You'll have some very pissed-off customers if you do that.

    As for the plugin itself --

    #1 - no need for a db table, use options instead, in a multi-dimensional array. Way less overhead.
    #2 - plugin options - use an array, retrieve it once, instead of a separate option for each option (did that make sense?).
    Ex:


    PHP Code:
    [$]myoptions = array('opt1' => 'left field', 'opt2' => 'quarterdeck', 'opt3' => 'afterlife');
    update_option('mypluginoptions', [$]myoptions); 
    (disregard the brackets around the $ sign - this stupid editor is eating variable names within PHP tags)

    Even though get_option() caches its results, it's still extra overhead to call it every time you want an option value. Retrieve your options values into an array at the top of your plugin and reference the array instead.
    #3 - it's good you give the option to wipe out storage. Too many plugin developers leave their crap scattered through the options table even when the plugin isn't in use anymore.
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    • Profile picture of the author johnnyN
      Thanks for your comments Steve.

      #1 javascript turned off - I gave this quite a bit of thought before I bothered. I believe that there are far more lost commissions due to basic theft than to javascript being turned off. Lets say you get 5% of visitors clicking on your commission link (generous). Of that a generous 5% might have js (probably more like 2-3%) turned of. This works out to 0.25% of visitors that have this problem. Very small compared to theft of commission links (there have been estimates of commission theft varying of between 20-50%, but my conversions increased about 20% after implementing LinkBouncer)

      #2 - I don't know where you have been in the last 2 years, but google most definitely looks at your outbound links and chalks it up to the whole authority status of your site. I am not just whistling dixie here, my day job is SEO.

      #3 - correct - I can't stop that, and ultimately no link cloaker can stop it.

      #4 - I will still add this option in, the spirit of cookie stuffing is adding the cookie when the user did not intend to do so. By clicking on a normal link, the user would get the cookie placed on their browser and then redirected to the site. The exact same thing happens with this modification except I don't use clickbank to redirect to the site. There is no fraud happening.

      plugin comments, thanks for this Steve.

      #1 - this was my first wp plugin, I just thought it was neater for me to use tabes (what I am used to) and I was intending of extending to more fields. But perhaps you are right, I may have to rethink the db table.

      #2. gotcha.

      #3. not really my doing, I used a framework as a starting point, and it had all the good code in it already so I used it.
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  • Profile picture of the author SteveJohnson
    I will definitely concede point #2 - I don't know what I was thinking, stuck on your cnn/skynews example, I guess...

    The method you're using goes against the Big G's webmaster guidelines, even unintentionally:
    From Cloaking, sneaky Javascript redirects, and doorway pages - Webmaster Tools Help
    Along those lines, it violates the webmaster guidelines to embed a link in JavaScript that redirects the user to a different page with the intent to show the user a different page than the search engine sees. When a redirect link is embedded in JavaScript, the search engine indexes the original page rather than following the link, whereas users are taken to the redirect target. Like cloaking, this practice is deceptive because it displays different content to users and to Googlebot, and can take a visitor somewhere other than where they intended to go.
    If you're extending the capabilities of the plugin, you may need to stay with a db table -- it is purely a design consideration and there's definitely a point where using the wp_options table won't work. Just thought I'd point out an easier way of doing what you are doing at present.

    As an aside, I don't do SEO all day like you do - but I DO work with WP all day. Coincidentally, I wrote about cluttering up the options table last month.
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    The 2nd Amendment, 1789 - The Original Homeland Security.

    Gun control means never having to say, "I missed you."

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    • Profile picture of the author johnnyN
      I have to disagree, the javascript directs the user to the same page that is in the link that is indexed by google.
      below is a scenario that this plugin is designed for.(affiliate link)

      if using my plugin. (damn i cannot post links)
      1. link indexed by google fvchamp.com
      2. Page that the user ends up at h ref=h ttp://fvchamp.com after javascript redirect.
      So there is no intended or perceived deception (just like google adwords does it)

      if using normal clickbank hoplink
      1. link indexed by google h ttp://3d396fs2qafjso9bfco9p-oi07.hop.clickbank dot net/
      2. page user ends up at after clickbank redirect h ref= fvchamp dot com/?hop=nickname

      as you can see using my plugin is not breaking any guidelines, and is in fact complies more than the 2nd option. (I know google probably follows the clickbank redirect and indexes that)

      It only becomes a problem when people use this plugin for black hat purposes (as i did with the CNN link). In which case they deserve to be penalized by google.

      I read your article on plugins, good post. Looking forward to an example. By the way I use your Simple Link Cloaker, and think it is the best of its type using internal links for redirects. Fast, and uses apache redirects.
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  • Profile picture of the author mihir
    really good work. impressed!!!
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  • Profile picture of the author mihir
    Originally Posted by johnnyN View Post

    The plugin is called linkbouncer and my site is at linkbouncer.com , it is an opt-in, but you can just unsubscribe once you have the download if you like.

    P.S. any comments on my site and any marketing tips you could give me would be appreciated.
    Nice theme, nice logo and nice aweber form placement+design selection.

    Why don't you remove default blogroll link?
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