rel="noreferrer" killed our affiliate revenues

[Apfelstrudel]

Hi,

only yesterday we found out that the rel="noreferrer" attribute killed 99% of our affilate revenues over the last 10 months. This attribute is being added to all external links, also to the affiliate links.

The affilate companies rated our clicks as invalid due to the missing referrer.

I know seeing this so late is absolutely our fault. No question. ?

But why isn't this being documented like the nofollow acp setting?

There must be a setting to remove this attribute from links otherwise affiliate links within postings could be invalid if the affilate checks the referrer.

Yesterday we coded a JS workaround to eliminate noreferrer from external links. Now it works again.

[opentype]

Isn’t that connected to the nofollow setting in the ACP? You can turn it off or leave it on and whitelist your partner sites. This silent change shocked me too, when I found about it later on, but I think I got it working again with just the ACP settings – no JS tricks. 

[Daniel F]

7 minutes ago, opentype said:

Isn’t that connected to the nofollow setting in the ACP? You can turn it off or leave it on and whitelist your partner sites. This silent change shocked me too, when I found about it later on, but I think I got it working again with just the ACP settings – no JS tricks. 

 

It's connected to the external links setting ( Force posted links to open in new windows ) .

			// Open external links in a new window
			if( ips.getSetting('links_external') ) {
				this.scope.find('a[rel*="external"]').each( function( index, elem ){
					elem.target = "_blank";
					elem.rel = elem.rel + " noopener noreferrer";
				})
			}

 

[Apfelstrudel]

No, it seems that it is connected to the "open in a new tab" feature and not the "nofollow" setting. Just tested it out.

But without JS all old already posted links stay invalid.

[opentype]

18 minutes ago, Apfelstrudel said:

No, it seems that it is connected to the "open in a new tab" feature and not the "nofollow" setting. Just tested it out.

I see. Yeah, I knew I fixed it in those link settings somehow. 

[Apfelstrudel]

But what about the old links? We have thousands of affilate links in our postings. That's why we have to use the JS workaround as well.

[opentype]

But I agree, that this is something the ACP description of the setting should point out at least. Referrer-based site monetization is a common practise nowadays. 

[Apfelstrudel]

Absolutely. I hope IPS will change something asap.

But regardless what they will change regarding this setting we have to accept that all already saved affilate links stay invalid. A JS workaround can't be the final solution.

[SeaTea]

2 hours ago, opentype said:

I see. Yeah, I knew I fixed it in those link settings somehow. 

Do you mean that your have added the referred domains in "Settings->Posting->URLs->Domains....to follow"  ?

[Apfelstrudel]

I have to come back to this important issue.

Is there something planned to let admins enable/disable this noreferrer-"feature" or do I have to decide between the two weird settings:

1. loosing session-users due to the diabled "open in a new tab"-setting but I'm allowed to earn affiliate money

and

2. keeping more session-users but burying the referrer-based site monetization?

@Lindy: As opentype has already mentioned, referrer-based site monetization is an important issue for a lot of forums.

[Sheffielder]

Is this affecting anyone using Google Adsense?

[Apfelstrudel]

No, this has nothing to do with standard Adsense blocks.

This affects "only" ? affiliate links in posts. 

[Sheffielder]

Got ya.

Good luck in getting it sorted

I know only too well how important revenues are

 

[Joy Rex]

So this would affect VigLink as well?

[Apfelstrudel]

On 31.10.2016 at 10:29 AM, Apfelstrudel said:

I have to come back to this important issue.

Is there something planned to let admins enable/disable this noreferrer-"feature" or do I have to decide between the two weird settings:

1. loosing session-users due to the diabled "open in a new tab"-setting but I'm allowed to earn affiliate money

and

2. keeping more session-users but burying the referrer-based site monetization?

@Lindy: As opentype has already mentioned, referrer-based site monetization is an important issue for a lot of forums.

*bump*

How can we get rid of this noreferrer problem without loosing session users?

I'm just wondering that obviously we have no other ipb admins here who use affiliate links.

[Fosters]

I have a plugin to "fix" this  

We're testing this currently at @Apfelstrudels community

[xtech]

On 22/11/2016 at 8:21 AM, Fosters said:

We're testing this currently at @Apfelstrudels community

Any update on this?

On 25/10/2016 at 10:40 AM, Daniel F said:

 

It's connected to the external links setting ( Force posted links to open in new windows ) .

			// Open external links in a new window
			if( ips.getSetting('links_external') ) {
				this.scope.find('a[rel*="external"]').each( function( index, elem ){
					elem.target = "_blank";
					elem.rel = elem.rel + " noopener noreferrer";
				})
			}

 

Where is that piece of JS to be changed?

[xtech]

Update on this:

i think file to edit is /home/nginx/domains/forumusica.com/public/applications/core/data/javascript.xml but i am not sure this should be enough.

I've just created a support ticket asking this.

Regards

[David..]

I believe I'm also experiencing this. I'm upset.

[Fosters]

On 22.7.2017 at 6:06 PM, xtech said:

Any update on this?

Yes, it's working as expected, but wasn't released yet:D

[Stuart Silvester]

It's worth noting that if you work around this, you are enabling the possibility of a phishing vulnerability on your community: https://www.jitbit.com/alexblog/256-targetblank---the-most-underestimated-vulnerability-ever/

[David..]

3 minutes ago, Stuart Silvester said:

It's worth noting that if you work around this, you are enabling the possibility of a phishing vulnerability on your community: https://www.jitbit.com/alexblog/256-targetblank---the-most-underestimated-vulnerability-ever/

Well, that's great.

It seems like FireFox added support for the "noopener" link type. So we can remove noreferrer? Or are people still in 2012 and using FireFox 1

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/52#HTML

[Stuart Silvester]

33 minutes ago, David.. said:

Well, that's great.

It seems like FireFox added support for the "noopener" link type. So we can remove noreferrer? Or are people still in 2012 and using FireFox 1

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Releases/52#HTML

Thanks, I have brought this up internally so that we can review our implementation.

[tekguru]

It would be useful as it looks like this killed my revenue in the past too.

[David..]

It seems like they fixed it in 4.2.2?

Anyone confirm?