VigLink 2018-07-26

[Brian Lovett]

Brian Lovett submitted a new resource:

VigLink - Easily Enable VigLink on your xenForo Forum

VigLink identifies commercial products mentioned within a publisher’s content, and automatically invigorates those terms by transforming them into revenue generating hyperlinks whose destinations are determined in real-time, advertiser-bid auctions.

Easily enable VigLink Convert and Insert on your forum in a few simple steps and without having to edit any templates.

This add-on also gives you the ability to turn of Convert and Insert for certain User Groups.


VigLink Convert
Using...

Read more about this resource...

 

[Brent W]

Thank you. We have been unable to use some features of Viglink because they are too intrusive to members. We would like to run them only for guests. This add-on will let us do that now.

 

[Brent W]

So I have checked Unregistered usergroup only for Insert and do not see the Viglink code on the site when logged out as a guest.

 

[Brian Lovett]

The insert phrases can take up to an hour to show up on a page. Also ensure that you have insert enabled in your VigLink account for that campaign.

 

[Brent W]

The insert phrases can take up to an hour to show up on a page. Also ensure that you have insert enabled in your VigLink account for that campaign.

As stated in the conversation the Viglink javascript is not even included in the page source.

 

[Brian Lovett]

Brian Lovett updated VigLink with a new update entry:

Fixed Logic for User Groups

Fixed Logic for User Groups

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[kontrabass]

Brian Lovett updated VigLink with a new update entry:

Fixed Logic for User Groups



Read the rest of this update entry...

Ahh, that might explain why links disappeared. Thanks for making this add-on. Saves time keeping templates up-to-date.

 

[Brian Lovett]

So I have checked Unregistered usergroup only for Insert and do not see the Viglink code on the site when logged out as a guest.

Thanks for helping us troubleshoot and get this fixed

 

[adwade]

Not sure why, but Chris D's Add-on Install & Upgrade reports that I should still upgrade after installing the v1.0.1 of your add-on just now.

EDIT: Nevermind, as soon as I re-ran the Check for Updates Now the upgrade notice disappeared!

 

[adwade]

I just noticed while checking my settings on the VigLink Dashboard, that (under Manage/Account/Edit Campaign) XenForo is now one of the available choices for Platform.

 

[Joeychgo]

I just noticed while checking my settings on the VigLink Dashboard, that (under Manage/Account/Edit Campaign) XenForo is now one of the available choices for Platform.

View attachment 140678

it has been for some time

 

[Glockie]

This may sound a newbie question, but is this to help monetise your forums?
if so, what about adult based sites?

 

[adwade]

Is there a way to verify that the VigLink Insert Option is working? I turned it ON for unregistered/guests only, but in browsing our website as a guest I can't find any such inserted links.

I've read over the VigLink Blog and turned up a few comments and wondered if they are still valid:

VigLink says "Link Insertion will work on any site. However, it may only insert links to common merchants and brands, such as "Amazon," "iPhone," "eBay," etc."

Others have said: "I've found that if you insert URLs in your content then they get linked pretty much instantly, but for brand names & keywords you might have to wait a while for them to get linked.(if linked at all)"

Also, in Oct of 2012, someone commented: "VigLink currently only supports Link Insertion for products on Automotive, Consumer Electronics, and Fashion sites."​

 

[Brian Lovett]

Is there a way to verify that the VigLink Insert Option is working? I turned it ON for unregistered/guests only, but in browsing our website as a guest I can't find any such inserted links.

I've read over the VigLink Blog and turned up a few comments and wondered if they are still valid:

VigLink says "Link Insertion will work on any site. However, it may only insert links to common merchants and brands, such as "Amazon," "iPhone," "eBay," etc."

Others have said: "I've found that if you insert URLs in your content then they get linked pretty much instantly, but for brand names & keywords you might have to wait a while for them to get linked.(if linked at all)"

Also, in Oct of 2012, someone commented: "VigLink currently only supports Link Insertion for products on Automotive, Consumer Electronics, and Fashion sites."​

Hi Adwade, start by making sure Insert is enabled for the campaign associated with the api key you used for the plugin. You can do this in your settings here: https://publishers.viglink.com/settings

From there, we crawl each page of your site after it is accessed. The inserted terms typically show up right away, but can take an hour or so in some cases. We are able to link terms across pretty much any vertical.

 

[Brian Lovett]

This may sound a newbie question, but is this to help monetise your forums?
if so, what about adult based sites?

That's correct, this is to help you monetize your forum. We turn ordinary commercial links to retailers into links that earn you money (our Convert Product). There is also an option to insert new links by highlighting words or phrases on the page (our Insert product).

Adult sites are typically ok, there may be some retailers that chose not to display links on your site because of that.

 

[Joeychgo]

This may sound a newbie question, but is this to help monetise your forums?
if so, what about adult based sites?

Viglink (convert) works by taking a link one of your members posts and making it an affiliate link --- thus giving you a commission when someone buys something that was linked to on your forum.
Viglink (insert) is a different program they offer which replaces certain keywords found in posts with links to products related to those keywords.

So for example... If one of your users posts a link to an ebay auction, and another member comes along, clicks that link and buys the item... you would get a commission.

However -- on an adult site, I cant imagine a lot of links to ebay items on your site. So I would question whether you could make much if anything due to that fact.

 

[adwade]

...on an adult site, I cant imagine a lot of links to ebay items on your site.

To the contrary, eBay has a segregated Adult Only Category, so @Glockie should be capable of having a plethora of links to adult items there.(Ref: How to find the Mature Audience Section on eBay.)

 

[adwade]

Well never-mind, because it's working just great now!

Here's a snippet of a post, as viewed by a registered user...


And here is the same snippet, as viewed by an unregistered user/guest...


It's easy to see the pair of links that have been inserted by the VigLink Insert function, and only for our unregistered users just as we dictated in the add-on's options.

P.S.
I tripped across How do I configure and customize VigLink Insert? and it was helpful, even mentioning some CSS code for such links.

 

[Brent W]

How are your usergroups setup? We have every usergroup selected for Convert and only Unregistered for Insert. We are having issues with Insert not showing up.

 

[adwade]

Here's ours...



With the bounced and invalid ones, removing the users ability to post until they revise their email and confirm it.

FWIW, we use the Keyword Management add-on and have a lot of links that it generates. I was searching for the word 'iPhone' in our posts and never saw any links generated for it via VigLink Insert, and thus assumed it was not working.

In hindsight, I should have probably turned the Keyword Management add-on OFF and perused our website to more easily see what VigLink Insert was doing for us.