Show Thread Enhancements - Hidden Back Links - Let content thieves promote your site

Product: 1
Plugin: 2
Query: 0

What does it do

It inserts some hidden links (back to your forum) into the content of long posts. If someone steals your content, copy & paste a post to other places, there will be at least a link back to the original URL of your site. Good for SEO too.

Since you can't stop content thieves anyway, why not take some advantages?

Install

Step 1: import product-copyright.xml
Step 2: add this to the main css->additional css definition

PHP Code:

.copyright {
display: none;
} 


Advanced
* for SEO purpose, there is an option to choose links back to a thread or a post.
* the back links will become visiable after copy&paste. if you like them to stay hidden, just open and modify template "copyright"

Find

PHP Code:

<span class="copyright"> 


Replace

PHP Code:

<span class="copyright" style="display: none;"> 


i do not recommend to do this cause this may be bad for SEO.

Sounds stupid?

Yes, stupid enough. It is so easy to remove the back links. But from my experience, thieves are busy, blind, or more stupider. Most of them won't remove the links. You can't image how many back links i got this way.

You could modify the phrase "copyright_source" to some unique string. And google for it.


Will it hurt my SEO?

I can't promise that. but I think it does more good than evil. You could give your opinions here.




The most famous travel forum in chinese world - www.bbkz.com

[bjhuang]

Originally Posted by tansu

how will I understand that it is working properly

post a new message with length longer than the number you set in "Min Post Length" option. select and copy the content of the post. paste it into notepad or your editor or your blog. you will see a backlink there.

[tansu]

Well I copied an old thread and pasted in a test thread. But the links are not hidden.
There are those links visible, like: "source: name of the forum and link"
edit: Opps, that's how it works, right?

[bjhuang]

Originally Posted by tansu

Well I copied an old thread and pasted in a test thread. But the links are not hidden.
There are those links visible, like: "source: name of the forum and link"

so it works. it meant to be visible anywhere except in the original post.

[tansu]

Originally Posted by bjhuang

so it works. it meant to be visible anywhere except in the original post.

I see,
last question: where can I change the "source" word to my language? I searched in templates, phrases and xml file. But couldnt find

[bjhuang]

Originally Posted by tansu

I see,
last question: where can I change the "source" word to my language? I searched in templates, phrases and xml file. But couldnt find

search for phrase variable named "copyright_source"

[tansu]

Ok, thanks...

[Rene Kriest]

Originally Posted by FRDS

I'm not sure I'd take the risk from this, hiding links on your own site can dramatically hurt your search engine optimization.

http://www.google.com/support/webmas...n&answer=66353

Use with caution if you feel such a measure is neccassary

Good point.

Here is an in-dept article that exculpates the addon from any black-hat or even grey-hat SEO techniques.

Enjoy!

[Alfa1]

I know this is not meant for vb 3.7.4 but I tried it anyway and got this error:

Warning: Division by zero in [path]/includes/class_postbit.php(293) : eval()'d code on line 61

[bjhuang]

I've read the articles before i created this mod. I think what Matt said support my idea. You can use hidden text, just not too much. that's why there are options for you to decide in which posts should the links inserted and how many of them.

As i mentioned, this mod act the same way your vbulletin popup menus do. if you think this will do hurt to SEO, maybe you should disable your popup menus either? and i forgot to tell, the back links will not be inserted if the pages are requested by bots. Yes, this is some kind of cloacking, but the vbulletin system itself cloacking the popup menus too by default.

I have implement a lot of so called grey-hat SEO techniques on my own site, and they never hurt my ranking. My attitude toward these techniques is simple: do what is good to users.

[bjhuang]

Originally Posted by Alfa1

I know this is not meant for vb 3.7.4 but I tried it anyway and got this error:

proably you have downloaded the previous uploaded file. plz try to download it again. it works for the version 3.6.8 afterward.

or open the plugin "Insert Copyright - Insert Text"

Replace All

PHP Code:

$vbulletin->options 


With

PHP Code:

$this->registry->options