Unable to link from an outside site (Simple fix?)

[Curiosity101]

Basically I have a main company site and an actinic shop.
Products on the main site are hot spotted so that a buyer can easily click on the part they want to buy (presuming they're buying spares/replacements for a machine) and then they can click 'buy online'.

The problem is that the links aren't always working. Sometimes you click the link and it takes you to the correct site and product, other times it will replace the online store url with the main site url and then complete the url with some of the online store url...it's very odd. I'll give an example.

Main site:
www.colortronic.co.uk

Actinic store
www.colortroniconline.com

Product with hot spots and links...
http://www.colortronic.co.uk/product...ying/csv05.asp (click 'Turn partfinder on' to see hotspots)
When you click on a hot spot a picture and 'buy online' button appears. When people click on the button...or click on 'buy service kit online' sometimes it points to the correct url and sometimes it doesn't.
Here is the html of the link (and is the correct url which is shown if you hover)

<input type="button" value="Buy Online" name="B3" ID="Button1" onClick="parent.location='http://www.colortroniconline.com/cgi-bin/ss000001.pl?PRODREF=<%=partID%>&amp;NOLOGIN=1'">

I have tried it as a straight forward a href text link aswell and have also tried using the EXACT formatting as shown on the actinic knowledge base. Nothing seems to fix it permenantly.

Here is what url it points to when you click on it and it's not working correctly...
http://www.colortronic.co.uk/product...10.html#a98171

This is what it should be
http://www.colortroniconline.com/aca...10.html#a98171


Any help would be very much appreciated. A few points to note are... some items double up in more than one category, I'd like to set up a system where I sub categorise products because at the moment some sections have 400+ products in them which gives slowish loading times. This means that in one section alone I'd have 10 sub sections. And in that section there will be 10+ sections and then at the top level of the store there are 5 sections... so adding all that up it's alot of specific sections to link to. meaning every single hotspot (of which there are MANY) would have to be linked specifically to it's part which really isn't do-able.

I really hope what I said made sense... if it doesn't I'll try to answer your questions as fully as possible.

[peblaco]

The problem is that you are going between two domains and the browser is setting the basehref to the wrong domain. You need to set a referrer on the links see here.

[Curiosity101]

Thanks, I'll try out your suggestions and report back.

[Curiosity101]

Oh just to check... does what you've said above apply to products that aren't missing from the online store?
I gave a product that does exist in the online store as there are only 1 or 2 missing from the online store that ARE hotspotted on machines.

[Curiosity101]

No I get that bit. I have added it all on and my link now reads as follows

<input type="button" value="Buy Online" name="B3" ID="Button1" onClick="parent.location='http://www.colortroniconline.com/cgi-bin/ss000001.pl?PRODREF=<%=partID%>&NOLOGIN=1&ACTINIC_REFERRER=http://www.colortroniconline.com/acatalog/'">

I have also added into the www.colortronic.co.uk page(s)....
<BASE HREF="http://www.colortronic.co.uk">
as nothing was defined previously.

What I was asking is that I'm aware the page errors if you click on a product that isn't in either the online database (held on colortronic.co.uk domain) or the actinic store. Which is why in my original post I gave an example of a product that is present in both the online database and actinic store so 'in theory' should be fully working with the correct link.
I wasn't sure if you'd picked to reply referring to a different product for a reason, or if you weren't aware that I'd pick one that should be working for a reason.

I hope that makes sense now?

[Curiosity101]

Ah right I see now. When I say product you think I mean the unit/machine.

CSV05.asp is CSV05 the machine (unit made up of many parts, some of which customers can purchase as replacements etc)

When I say product I mean the product (hotspot) A98171. Or basically any product that isn't the large rod product that has a hot spot.

Random base href now remove from the page. Sorry about that. So should I be using a base href as part of a link or in the head of a page? I'm presuming it's head.

And you're saying I should be adding it to the page I'm linking to in actinic?

[peblaco]

No to both, you only need to add ACTINIC_REFERRER in the links from your .co.uk to the .com. The .com already has a base href.

[Curiosity101]

Ah right... so according to your theory (and actinics), the links should be working now shouldn't they?

Because I've styled it exactly how they suggested.... but it really doesn't want to work.

Even if you hover over the 'buy service kit link' it doesn't work... and that is literally a straight forward link.
Tell me if you think this should be working correctly....

<a href="http://www.colortroniconline.com/cgi-bin/ss000001.pl?PRODREF=CSV501&NOLOGIN=1&ACTINIC_REFERRER=http://www.colortroniconline.com/acatalog/"><img src="/images/ico_servicekit.jpg" alt="Colortronic Service Kit Icon" align="middle" border="0">Buy Service Kit Online</a>

[peblaco]

Yes it works fine. Clear your browser cache.

[Curiosity101]

I'll check it on another PC on FF and see what result I get. But I have tried doing this as a fix before and I vaguely remember it still not working.

It's getting to the point where I'm thinking there must be something about the site which is overriding 'normal html'. I didn't build the .co.uk site I have only ever built on top of it. Adding new pages, tweaking styles etc etc. There is a large amount of the coding (such as the online database on the .co.uk domain) when I have absolutely no knowledge of how it works as it was all built by my boss.

If this still doesn't work then I think I might pass it back to him. lol.
Just for the record, actinic weren't much help, the best suggestion I got was to link to the category + product specifically (on at least 400 products!!!! madness)

[Curiosity101]

Well that has fixed it for now (which is odd considering that I definitely did this before...)

I literally copied/pasted from the actinic knowledge database and just filled in the bits I needed too. Double checked and triple checked, but it started doing the .co.uk thing again.

Eitherways, thanks for getting back to me. You have at least confirmed that I tried the right method of fixing it before. If it breaks again then I'll just give up and pass it back to my boss like I said.

[Curiosity101]

No, what I mean is...

http://www.colortroniconline.com/aca...10.html#a98171

as opposed to

http://www.colortroniconline.com/cgi-bin/ss000001.pl?PRODREF=<%=partID%>&NOLOGIN=1&ACTINIC_REFERRER=http://www.colortroniconline.com/acatalog/

The link can't add anything to the cart (for a few reasons)
Partly because no prices can be shown to anyone unless they have an account because different customers will have slight differences in prices
If they're going from the .co.uk site it is very likely they don't have an actinic account with us and can't buy without one
If they are using it to point them to the actinic product on the actinic site (after they have an account), then it's an extremely useful tool for helping people to pick the right part. If you have a browse around the site you'll see just how many machines there are 9and they aren't all up yet!).

And of the machines there are over 3500 spare parts available to buy (all of which need pictures... I think I've done just short of 1500)