Dynamically Create Amazon Links to use your associate id
 

This one is in beta gang. Amazon seems to like to change their link style every two minutes.

What it does: It takes any link to Amazon pages on your forum and modifies the link on the fly to use your associate id. This one should make you some money - it generally works very well for my forum around Christmas time.

No screenshots. You know what an Amazon link looks like ;)

I am offereing this one with limited support. I will get it working as well as possible - in other words, correctly transforming as many links as possible. But, I can't promise it will get every link because of differences between the different vbulletin message editors, etc.

Amy

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This hack will always be free, however your donations are kindly accepted and will help towards further development. If you donate, please leave me some info (either your forum site or username at vB.org) so that I can thank you. :)
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2010/02/12.gif

Nice job:) Very good idea! Won't use it but good job :D

Good Job Amy

It's been available for 3.0 versions for ages.

Gang, I just wanted to note that clicking the install button is pretty important with this and other beta hacks. As I fix any little glitches I find as the code runs on my site, I update the code for you and send out update emails. I will ONLY announce these bug fixes in the update emails as my feeble attempt to entice you to click the install button.

Perhaps I'm missing something very obvious here - but why do you have a seperate file to upload - when all the plugin does is call this file ? Why not just put the code in the plugin ?

Because I am trying to make it so the file is compatible with the 3 and 2 versions because Amazon has changed its links. In addition, I should be able to hook this into private messages as well and keeping the code in one place makes it more maintainable.

Amy

Downloading to look at :)
I assume I'm gonna have to fiddle to make it work with .co.uk?


edit: What's the standard form for a US link?

Ours are like this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...221647-1306012
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...TCODE/REFCODE/ ?

I don't even know what the last bit is, I assume it's some kind of session thing?

Anyway the codes at the bottom of your file look like they'd work fine with just .com replaced with .co.uk, what do you reckon?

The other ones... ours are like this
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...rowse/-/283926 (that's DVDs)

Again looks the same. Seems shockingly sensible (i.e. unlikely!) that both sites actually use the exact same code.



Maybe I'll just dive in and try it :o

That's what I advise. Just dive in and try. :)

Nice hack!

Thank you. :)

Nice mod. It looks like Amazon very recently changed their URL schema though as it seems it's not inserting the affiliate ID like it used too :(

Again? I get so sick of Amazon changing their links. This is the third time since this mod originally came out for version 2.x

Amy

If its possible to use it only with the amazon API, then we dont need links and Amazon will give us automatically an image, text...

Maybe you can work on this Plugin so we can use it with the API!?

Thanks a lot

Junior

Junior, if you can tell me a way to use the amazon api to take a link that somebody arbitrarily posts and change it to use the associate id, I'll gladly do it as long as it doesn't kill performance.

is there a way to choose a different hook ? where it automatically makes the link from existing threads ? i notice this works only on newly created threads

I would love to see this hack in a german version too. Any attempt to make this?

I would love to see this also work for different affiliate programs, such as linkshare or comission junction. If anyone knows if there is something similar to this for CJ or Link Share, please, please let me know. Thanks.

Does this version still work?

It seems to on my site contrary to earlier reports that the link format has changed.

Amy,
just a short question. I?m using this with the german amazon-site. I never noticed a no=sim in the links. What is it for ?

Anyway,..this no=sim becomes to:
and I?m asking myself if this link will lead to a conversion..

Any idea - anyone ?

The nosim means don't show similar products.

First, great hack amykhar.

Second, is there a way to make the changed links permanent?
Because if you edit a posting, it shows the old and unchanged link.

This is a great addon Mnykhar. Good job.

Question: I posted a message at https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?p=932722 that is a request along the same lines as this addon. Can you read it please and tell me what you think?

Thanks

It's not somethng I'm interested in working on, but it's an interesting idea :)

I just uploaded a new zip file that fixes a problem my users just now reported with hotlinking Amazon images. Why they didn't mention this problem two years ago....

Users :rolleyes:

How about the same thing for ebay?

mike, I did it for 3.0 and nobody really used it. With very little effort, you could take the old ebay mod and this mod and combine them to have a working ebay mod.

I'll look into it. Thanks.

I just updated and tested this, unfortunately the fix not working for me.

Text links continue to convert fine to use my associate ID.

But when I use an Amazon image instead, it does not: the URL stays as the original.

What information can I provide that may help troubleshoot this?

Thanks, Amy...

The image SHOULD stay as the original. If it converts to an associate image, it breaks the image. The link should use your associate id. The image should not.

It does as you say; the image stays as the original and displays properly.

I am talking about when I replace the text of a link with the product image, so it's clickable.

Like this:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2006/04/11.jpg


In this case, the Amazon URL is not converted to use my associates ID.

Ah. I'll have to poke around with that and see what I can do.

Another great addition by amy

Dumb question, but once this is installed, how do i use it? :)

Downloaded and installed in under a minute.

It appears to be working fine for vb 3.5.3.

:banana:

hope it makes you wealthy :D

Any news on this, Amy? I'd sure appreciate it. We have a "reviews" section where folks are encouraged to present the links as product photos, and compatibility with your hack would be super cool.

I honestly haven't had time to look at it. Sorry.

No problem, thanks for the response nonetheless. :)