Creating an affiliate blog
 

Any of you have any experience passing an affiliate id through WordPress? I was hoping that affiliates could link to the paysite-based blog with a simple URL like example.com/index.php?AFFILIATE-ID instead of using the long and ugly CCBill URL. Unfortunately, by the time WP finally builds the page, the affiliate id is long gone. I've searched WP's forums and plugins for a solution, but can't find one.

I can't wait to see what happens with the RSS feed. |cry|

On topic for this discussion, but not blogging:
Am I correct in assuming that, if I must, I could use the CCBill linkage to link directly to the blog and the cookie created by them would carry through to the paysite even though the blog is on a different domain? It seemed to work during my test, but I need to be absolutely positive.(obviously) I suppose I could just ask Chop, but that would be too easy. ;)

the cookie is set by .ccbill.com, and is read by ccbill's join page process and has nothing to do with the destination url's domain.

Thanks cd. That was my feeling, but I've learned not to trust my intuition...or my limited technical knowledge...or my wife. ;)

Useless, if you are building one blog per site (or if all of the sites use the same code / cookie) you could do this:

Make a page to bounce the surfers to CCBill with the blog as the return page

Write the blog with nothing but hardlinks right to the tours... remember, the cookie is already set.

Bob's your uncle.

However, there are drawbacks to this for the webmasters. If the surfer bookmarks the blog, I am not sure how long the cookie persists, so there might be lost sales on bookmarkers (unless the blog appears to be that bounce page URL).

You might want to ask Jayman, I think they have some "bloggy" things for their sites, they might be able to give you an idea. I think some of them are using custom software that looks like a blog but really isn't.

Now, if you want to RSS out content for other sites to use with the affiliate codes dumped into it, that can be coded up easily enough... let me know if you need a hand with that.

Alex

the other issue you run into sending the ccbill click to the blog then sending the click to the sponsor is that the clickthrough ratio will seem to be worse than if someone sent direct to the tour.

I have clients that use the ccbill code to send to hosted galleries and that is a very common complaint.

I agree with Sparky and Alex.

Until the cookie dies, affiliate XXXXXX will get credit for any signup for account 925696.

Notice the subaccount is "0000" not "0016" as the ccbill form will determine which site the subscription is for.

Right?

UW, if you are looking for a solution then I would like to invite you to www.FeedAdult.com rss mangement script...

The blog I'm currently working on is for one site, but there would be links in the sidebar to all of the other sites in the program. So the cookie would have to work for all sites.

The goal is to have it set for both direct linking and to allow affiliates to pull an RSS feed with their affiliate ID embedded within all of the links, if they so choose. I'm beginning to think that there are far simpler ways of building a basic blog and then using an RSS script to add the level of functionality, rather than prying away the different levels of WP that seem to be dropping the affiliate ID on me. As it stands, by the time the page is produced, is nothing but an empty space in the outgoing links.

Just a thought, a not yet caffeinated thought mind you, but the is probably getting "lost" due to all the includes that WP uses to construct pages. Using javascript to read the query string, then write the affiliate codes as needed may work better as it will be client side after the page is assembled. (not sure what that will do in the RSS feed)

Anther option would be a PHP Session variable.

Toby, you are correct - because of the somewhat cumbersome way that wordpress does things, the only thing you can count on is things getting screwed over. It is just par for the course.

Wordpress I think isn't the right tool for this job... you can probably force it to do it, but way too much effort is needed.

Alex

Why not just put the CCBill affiliate code in the blog url? Use mod-rewrites if you want it more se friendly, use php to pull the affiliate number for any sponsor links. Of course assuming there will only be one affilate number for all links. If more than one, could use a DB, easy. I dont know wordpress, but it would be just a matter of echo'ing the affiliate id/number, cant see why wordpress could'nt do that.

Or I am completing missing the job..:)

Boogie did a affiliate blog some time back, that still going?

ronnie

Of the hosted blogs I know of, quite a few of them are built on WP. Other than that, I have absolutely nothing productive to add to this conversation.

Yeah, WP makes the passing of the affiliate code a rather complicated venture at first. There are simply too many steps involved, each one taking its turn at dropping the code. I did finally have a breakthrough of sorts and can successfully pass the aff code through creation and from post to post, and the ad links to the paysite are picking up the query as well. It's only are few lines of code here and there. The hard part was figuring out where they needed to be. The category links pretty much refuse to handle it, so I'm going to hard code them instead of allowing them to be dynamically created.

WP definately did not have this type of thing in mind. The few posts I could find about handling affiliate codes on WP's forum pretty much went unanswered. I have given up my search for documentation on how this could be done simply.

I haven't toyed with the RSS feed yet, and I'm a little scared now. I think the feed would be a useful tool, so I'm not going to give up on it until it proves to me how much of fool I am for attempting it. ;)

Could you show me some examples? I need some ideas.

you could always use sessions -- and then process your exit links through a script. If you automatically start the session, set a decent expiration time, and set trans_sid, you should be able to always read the session on your exit links.

then $_SESSION['affid'] could always be retained, urls would appear clean and not munged (unless they didn't accept cookies)

I was just at php.net yesterday, looking over session info, and that is probably the best route for this project. I believe Toby suggested that too. I know nothing about creating sessions, but how hard could it be? ;)

I'm suppose to be installing an interior door and doing some taping on some new sheet rock in a customer's home, but I'm still sitting here screwing with this blog. |boobies| I believe I officially have the aff id being passed in every link, even archive links, so I'm pretty fucking proud of my ignorant self right now. Those of you who know Chop, know that he'd never forgive me if the aff id was dropped in a single instance.

Now it's on to the RSS feed. I try syndicating it with one of my aggregators this morning and it dropped the id instantly. So - all uphill on that end. Still happy about the blog itself though. I guess I should start writing posts, eh.

Since you say you wanted examples, I left my affiliate ID in.

http://www.beckysdiary.com/MjU4NTozOjI/ WP1.5.2
http://www.brookeblog.com/sex_blog/ WP1.5.2
http://www.candidiary.com/MjU4NTozOjI/ WP1.5.2
http://www.realsexpost.com/?aff_id=101257 WP2.0.1
http://www.sexblognow.com/?ainfo=NDk1NXwy&atcc=0 unkonwn version
http://spookyblog.com/?id=1170122 WP 2.0.2

Now if I could get them to give me their source code I'd be all set. :D

Most of those blogs I knew about, but didn't know they were WP based.

EDIT - I was just bouncing around some of those blogs. If you really click around, click the archive links or category links, there are links there after that appear to lose the affiliate id and contain no id or have the paysite's default NATS code in the links. I can't be certain that the affiliate id is dropped, but that's not a chance I'm willing to take. If the affiliate can't see his/her affiliate ID being carried in every single internal and paysite link, I won't release it. I don't want to deal with affiliate speculation and the affiliate shouldn't have to ask what's going on.

Okay, this fucking thing is taxing me now. The links work. The RSS feed works. But I put some gallery links in a post and they aren't picking up the aff id. WTF? I keep searching through all of the script pages and I can't seem to pin point the exact section that builds the posts. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Or the left direction even?

I assume you're using some kind of variable name within the gallery link in your post so that WP knows that this isn't an ordinary alpha-numeric text string?

Naturally. I'm using the same variable that I've used every step of the way. WP build each part separately, then assembles them as a whole. So I've told each separate part how to find the affiliate id in the url, then place my in every instance where WP would be building links. All has worked fine. Now, when I add a gallery link within a post, I do something like this: http://www.buttplugballfan.com/shit-gallery.php? Because the posts are being assembled in some other factory before being shipped to the main showroom, they don't know how to find $QUERYSTRING. And my search for this hidden post building factory is coming up empty.

Anyone own a bloodhound?

You'll probably have to modify the specific function that fetches a post from the database.

I did manage to find that function, screwed with it, and learned how to get the posts to not show up. :D

UW- Once you've done all the heavy lifting, you're gonna send your templates over to me, right? :-D