reffers question?

[web@ack]

Hi

We have built a site/shop for a customer. They provide a service for associates so on their website, they can place a link to buy the book from the shop we have built for our customers.

Our customer wants to know how many sales have come through these customers sites.

Now i knbow the refer script will do this and the following link works fine: -

http://www.cordee.co.uk/cgi-bin/rs000010.pl?SOURCE=SMC&DESTINATION=canoe1.html&PATH=../acatalog&BASEURL=http://www.cordee.co.uk/acatalog

The only problem i have is on some of the pages there are ALOT of books and this line only drops them in at the top of the page. If theres lots of books, people are not going to want to search through all the books to find the particular one.

Currently we have provided links that go to the correct page then jump down to an anchor point which is fine but it doesnt help us tracking. is there anby third party software that could help?

Many Thanks

[Mike Hughes]

have you tried changing the bit after 'DESTINATION' to include the anchor tag of the book after the pagename.

i.e. currently you have:

DESTINATION=canoe1.html

but you could try

DESTINATION=canoe1.html#aproductID

as in the direct link you already talk about.

Mike

[web@ack]

yep

it throws up a general script error though

any more suggestions?

[cdicken]

I don't think there is anyway to drop people to a product. You could create a few bounce pages in your 'acatalog' folder that bounce people to the product, and then link the referrer URL to those.

[Mike Hughes]

Rather than go for a 3rd party solution, you might find one the perl folks here could figure out why the refferrer code doesn't work with a product ID as an anchor.

You might even find one of the actinic guys could have the answer. It might take a day or two though as they're training on friday (and have a release to get tested and out the door).

Mike

[Andy Warner]

perl referrer script problem

Hi all,

I've looked into this too. The reason you can't add an anchor tag is because the perl script doesnt just pull up an existing page as a normal link would do. It reads the page the DESTINATION tag points to, and parses it, then writes out a new page AND the cookie information that notes the REFERRER tag.

Anyone out there got a work around for this????

andy
www.legendgames.co.uk

[kathynewman]

Any updates?

Anything more come of this in terms of a workround? I'm desparately trying to find a way to do this. We currently have our products listed with Pangora and Zencudo and both of these now require the link to go straight to the product rather than the section but this means I have no idea as to whether we are getting any sales through these listings.

Thanks

Kathy

[dave_finlayson]

Hi Guys,

Just reading your posts and I suspect your problems may be related to this post:-

http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=9653

Maybe not but thought I would point it out!

Dave

[kathynewman]

Thanks Dave but that only deals with taking people direct to a product - I'm trying to do that and have a referrer code as well and that doesn't work!

Kathy

[cdicken]

I'm afraid it's one or the other. There is no way to link to a product via a referrer script. It can only link to a section.

The only thing I can think of is creating special 'landing' pages containing a single product and use these for linking to from other places.

[web@ack]

The only thing I can think of is creating special 'landing' pages containing a single product and use these for linking to from other places.

This is what i ended up doing in the end

[Andy Warner]

the referrer problem

I think I found a solution....

I will add a new name pair to the referrer link (for example) &ITEM=ANCHOR
change the referrer.pl script to suck out that pair when it parses the referer link input, then when the final page gets output by the script, add a url refresh to the specified section and append the anchor to that....

thus the cookie gets set (correctly) when the &DESTINATION page is dynamically written by the perl script, but then that page refreshes to the real &DESTINATION page with the anchor at the end.

I will work on it over the week end.... I hope my perl is up to it!!

Andy

[Andy Warner]

Referrer Script - go to specific item

Hi Folks,

I have a crude but seemingly workable ammendment to the V6 referrer.pl script to go to a specified item.

No guarantees, no liability, use at your own risk.....

How to use:

FIRST BACK UP the referrer.pl file as referrer.bak or similar (found in your site1 folder as a rule)

Ive attached the perl script called referrer.pl.txt - rename it as referrer.pl
substitute the new referrer.pl file for the old one
do a catalog upload, and the rs000001.pl file will be replaced

hey presto, it should work!!!!

How it works:
the standard referrer script doesnt actually go to a static page. it reads the &DESTINATION page, parses it, then writes it back to the browser with cookie info added. What this work-around does is replace the output with a simple meta page refresh to the STATIC page specified in &DESTINATION= plus appends a product anchor that is specified in a new name pair on the referrer link, called &LGPRODUCTCODE=

It also works without the added product code, reverting to original functionality, just so your existing referrals continue to work.

full info is noted in the ammended referrer.pl code. read it before you upload.

As I say, this is a workaround, I'm not a perl programmer. I take NO responsibility for any problems, security issues whatever.
please let me know if it works ok. AND TEST IT lots.

Any questions, comments, offers of money etc to andy @ legendgames.co.uk or here on the community boards
Hope this helps
andy

www.legendgames.co.uk
www.thegamesplace.co.uk
www.kinkygames.co.uk