Show Thread Enhancements - External Link Titles, retrieve descriptive titles for URLs

Keywords: SHOWTHREAD, external, link, titles, URLs, SEO

Description:
Retrieves descriptive titles for external posted links. Allows for better link recognition and, in theory, could help increase page SEO.

Details:
I recall this being requested somewhere, so I decided to take a stab at it. This is yet another feature offered in vBSEO.

For those unaware of what this actually does.. by default, when a URL is posted without a description it looks like:
http://www.vbulletin.com

With this modification enabled, it will now look like:
vBulletin.org Forum - The Official vBulletin Resource!

Nicer, eh?

[hr]-[/hr]
Installation:

1. Download and import product-linktitles.xml via the Product Manager.
2. Enable the modification via AdminCP > vBulletin Options > External Link Titles Options (it is disabled by default)
3. ???
4. Profit!

Notes:
There's really no magic here, it polls for titles using the cURL() function. If for some reason your host does not have cURL() enabled, you're out of luck.

From time to time you may notice the occasional link that does not get titled -- this is due to either the fact that the url is not active or it either timed out waiting for a response. By default, the system will wait for 5 seconds before timing out. If you wish to modify the timeout, you may do so via the AdminCP.

[hr]-[/hr]
Comments:
As with all my hacks, this modification is provided free of charge. However, if you find this product useful and have money burning a hole in your pocket, feel free to make a small donation, I won't mind.. really.

Version History:

• 1.0.0 - Initial release, here's to hoping...
• 1.1.0 - Added the ability to blacklist specific domains from having link titles retrieved (configurable via the AdminCP)
• 1.1.1 - Wrapped returned titles in html_entity_decode(); to return properly decoded HTML characters.

Currently Known Bugs:

• None

* Please note that this modification was developed on a forum with a userbase of 1 (myself). I've tested it for basic functionality but I cannot guarantee functionality or behavior on your forum. So, please -- make backups before installing this product!

[magnus]

Originally Posted by maxicep

No no,

i know what u said, i know how disable the safe mode but i asked u how can i allow curl_setopt function while safe mode running. So can i configure safe mode settings like curl_setopt : on ?

No. The entire point of PHP safe_mode is to disallow certain functions. To circumvent that would defeat the point of safe_mode (to which, honestly, is a pain in the rear).

[maxicep]

Ok so i disable the safe mode on my server for only that mod

[magnus]

Originally Posted by maxicep

Ok so i disable the safe mode on my server for only that mod

Is there a reason you even had safe_mode enabled? It would be fine and dandy if you were serving static content and not much else, but even vBulletin itself benefits from having safe_mode disabled -- not to mention most of the modifcations available here.

[maxicep]

Of course, i prefer it for more security .

[magnus]

Originally Posted by maxicep

Of course, i prefer it for more security .

The original intent of PHP safe_mode is to provide a bandaid solution for shared server security issues. Since you apparently maintain your own server, you're not really seeing much (if any) benefit to having it enabled.

In fact, it's been removed as of PHP 6.0.0.

[maxicep]

Thanks for help magnus.

Also i have problem with some Turkish Website Titles.
If title include a Turkish character like "ş, ğ, ı, ç" title looking very bad.

I tried edit the plugin
first line

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>

i made it

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-9"?>

I added this plugin again but iso charset didnt changed, i cant change it?

Should we change it for solve Turkish character problem ?

[magnus]

Originally Posted by maxicep

Thanks for help magnus.

Also i have problem with some Turkish Website Titles.
If title include a Turkish character like "ş, ğ, ı, ?" title looking very bad.

I tried edit the plugin
first line

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>

i made it

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-9"?>

I added this plugin again but iso charset didnt changed, i cant change it?

Should we change it for solve Turkish character problem ?

Could you show me an example of what's happening?

[maxicep]

Sure, see below

Fenerbahçe Fan/FB Videoları, FB Resimleri, FB ?�arkıları, FB Yazıları, FB Hakkında Her?�ey

Some characters look bad on some sites?

But site title looking good when i enter the site.
Site title on my explorer

Fenerbah?e Fan/FB Videoları, FB Resimleri, FB Şarkıları, FB Yazıları, FB Hakkında Herşey :

Url

http://fenerbahce-fan.blogspot.com/

[REIGN SS]

Installed works about 80% of the time... I guess it has to due with the External Links Timeout setting, currently at 6seconds... Thanks for the mod!

[Boothby]

For all, having problems with Save Mode on this is my little fix to solve it.

Find twice

PHP Code:

if (function_exists('curl_init') AND $ch = curl_init())
{
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $match[1]);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, $vbulletin->options['linktitles_timeout']);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true);

    $file_contents = curl_exec($ch);
} 


And replace with:

PHP Code:

$file_contents = @file_get_contents($match[1]); 


Then I added a small tweak to parse url's without a scheme, like "http://".

find twice:

PHP Code:

$url_host = $url['host']; 


After it add:

PHP Code:

if(!$url['scheme'])
{
      $match[1] = "http://" . $match[1];
} 


Now it works for me beautyful.

Thanks and installed.