Amazon Associates Hack for VB3

This hack converts any US amazon link posted on your board to use your affilliate id and is based of some work Logician did for me in Vbulletin 2, but is an improved rewrite. The old version did not track well with Amazon because it did not strip out Amazon session ids.

Please note that you need to change my affilliate id to use yours.

Also note that the chunk of code you are looking for in edit.php may not be an exact match in your file. You are looking for the query that updates the post table with the edited post.

Regarding Update.zip Update.zip contains a new functions_amazon.php that I would like some people to try out before I add to the regular zip file. The new function handles Amazon's new link format, and I believe, works better than the original function. Please LET ME KNOW if you try it and it works for you.

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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.

[amykhar]

I don't know. But, if I get time in the next day or so, I'll work on knocking other people's referrals out of other links as well.

Amy

[OrangeFlea]

I recently visited a message board that had a "Shop with Amazon" drop down menu on the top of their forum (navigation bar area). When users click on this link, a small search box (similar to the “Search Forum” box) with an amazon logo and design appears, in where users would enter their query in the search-like box. For example, a member would type in a product name and it would automatically take them to the corresponding amazon.com page.

I was wondering how I would be able to install this feature onto my message board. Please try to be very thorough and detailed when describing the steps and the coding involved.

[cteselle]

Originally Posted by OrangeFlea

I recently visited a message board that had a "Shop with Amazon" drop down menu on the top of their forum (navigation bar area). When users click on this link, a small search box (similar to the ?Search Forum? box) with an amazon logo and design appears, in where users would enter their query in the search-like box. For example, a member would type in a product name and it would automatically take them to the corresponding amazon.com page.

I was wondering how I would be able to install this feature onto my message board. Please try to be very thorough and detailed when describing the steps and the coding involved.

This is almost a hack by itself, but here it goes:

In your navbar template, find:

		<tr>
			<td class="thead">$vbphrase[search_forums]</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td class="vbmenu_option" title="nohilite">
			<form action="search.php" method="post">
				<input type="hidden" name="do" value="process" />
				<input type="hidden" name="showposts" value="0" />
				<input type="text" class="bginput" name="query" size="20" />$gobutton<br />
			</form>
			</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td class="vbmenu_option"><a href="search.php?$session[sessionurl]" accesskey="4">$vbphrase[advanced_search]</a></td>
		</tr>

After that add:

<!-- Amazon.com Search Start -->
		<tr>
			<td class="thead">Search Amazon.com!</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td class="vbmenu_option" title="nohilite">
			<form action="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search">
				<input type="text" class="bginput" name="keyword" size="20" />$gobutton<br />
				<input type="hidden" name="mode" value="blended" /> 
            			<input type="hidden" name="tag" value="YOUR ASSOCIATE ID" /> 
			</form>
			</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
           		<td style="background-color:#000;" height="40" align="center"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/YOUR ASSOCIATE ID"><img src="http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/associates/build-links/ap-search-logo-126x32.gif" height="36" border="0" width="126" /></a></td>
		</tr>
<!-- Amazon.com Search End -->

Don't forget to change "YOUR ASSOCIATE ID" with the correct info.

[OrangeFlea]

Cteselle, thank you so very much!

I was wondering, will it show the amazon.com graphics on the search box display? I want it to look somewhat professional and official.

EDIT: Also, will guests be able to view it?

[cteselle]

Originally Posted by OrangeFlea

Cteselle, thank you so very much!

I was wondering, will it show the amazon.com graphics on the search box display? I want it to look somewhat professional and official.

EDIT: Also, will guests be able to view it?

The amazon graphic will appear below the search box.

Guests will be able to see it, if you have search turned on for guests.

[OrangeFlea]

Another question.

This only creates another table for the pre-existing search box. I wanted to make a separate drop-down menu altogether on the navbar. Is it possible for you to provide me with the code that does this?

[gregwatson]

So is there any way to get this to work with the GAL auto linker hack?

Greg

Installed

[amykhar]

It's two separate things that you should be able to use together. This hack modifies links, not text. The other hack modifies text, not links.

[gregwatson]

Originally Posted by amykhar

It's two separate things that you should be able to use together. This hack modifies links, not text. The other hack modifies text, not links.

It's probably just a matter of "sequence" ... right now this won't modify a link that is created by GAL ... I was trying to simply GAL ...

Greg

[Adrian Schneider]

Sorry this may be kind of off topic, but how does the Amazon associates thing work? Do you place ads? Explain this to stupid old me.