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Posted October 25, 20168 yr 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.
October 25, 20168 yr 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.
October 25, 20168 yr 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"; }) }
October 25, 20168 yr Author 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.
October 25, 20168 yr 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.
October 25, 20168 yr Author 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.
October 25, 20168 yr 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.
October 25, 20168 yr Author 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.
October 25, 20168 yr 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" ?
October 31, 20168 yr Author 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.
October 31, 20168 yr Author No, this has nothing to do with standard Adsense blocks. This affects "only" ? affiliate links in posts.
October 31, 20168 yr Got ya. Good luck in getting it sorted I know only too well how important revenues are
November 9, 20168 yr Author 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.
November 22, 20168 yr I have a plugin to "fix" this We're testing this currently at @Apfelstrudels community
July 22, 20177 yr 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?
July 23, 20177 yr 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
July 23, 20177 yr 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
July 23, 20177 yr Community Expert 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/
July 23, 20177 yr 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
July 23, 20177 yr Community Expert 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.
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