Posting > Links & Email Addresses flaw

[WebCMS]

If a user posts affiliate links, moderators approving the moderated links won't be savvy enough to know which part of the posted URL is spam. For instance -

Host name (explodes into full URL when clicked) - amzn.to/<product>

URI - amazon.com/?...tag=<publisher>

These are just examples and there are many more spam URLs from other sites with lot of variations.

Currently, the only options with Links & Email Addresses is to either Block or Moderate both of which are not adequate. Please provide a 3rd option to REPLACE the spam part of the link (similar to Word Filters) with a replacement text so the affiliate link becomes useless.

If we add a Link Filter like amzn.to or tag= these should get replaced with **** so they become ineffective.

Word Filters has REPLACE option with a flaw that only the displayed text is replaced but not the underlying link which may be fixed as well.

Please confirm if this added to your bug model.

[Marc]

Im not sure what exactly it is you are requesting here. Why wouldnt you just add these to disallowed links?

[Sonya*]

41 minutes ago, Marc Stridgen said:

Why wouldnt you just add these to disallowed links?

The author means the link should be allowed. But the referral part should be replaced by something, like *** either in text and URL. 

@WebCMS there is a custom app that makes something similar https://forum.invisionize.pl/files/file/872-dp45-advanced-regexp/

 

[Marc]

37 minutes ago, Sonya* said:

The author means the link should be allowed. But the referral part should be replaced by something, like *** either in text and URL. 

Ah I see. Thanks for the confirmation

[WebCMS]

Correct. Links & Email Addresses should work similar to Word Filters where there is a replacement text specified to replace the objectionable words. Without this, technologically challenged moderators would have no clue what part of the URL to remove/replace before approving the link with the current flaw.

Please add the REPLACE logic to Links & Email Addresses where we could replace the spammer's tag (or append if tag doesn't exist) with our own publisher tag value and earn that commission! 😀 (works only with tag parameter and not amzn.to host name)

NOTE: It should replace the specified part in both the displayed text and underlying link with the replacement text.

[Sonya*]

2 minutes ago, WebCMS said:

Addresses should work similar to Word Filters where there is a replacement text specified to replace the objectionable words.

Just to mention: word filter does not replace parts of the words. It replaces the whole match only. Partial replacing is not a default feature in IPS, not even in word filters.

[WebCMS]

10 hours ago, WebCMS said:

Please add the REPLACE logic to Links & Email Addresses where we could replace the spammer's tag (or append if tag doesn't exist) with our own publisher tag value and earn that commission! 😀 (works only with tag parameter and not amzn.to host name)

Well, Link replacement can be made to work with hostname affiliate links as well to inject our own tag/publisherId.

amzn.to/productId => can be reformatted as => amazon.com/dp/prouctId?tag=publisherId

12 hours ago, Sonya* said:

The author means the link should be allowed. But the referral part should be replaced by something, like *** either in text and URL. 

@WebCMS there is a custom app that makes something similar https://forum.invisionize.pl/files/file/872-dp45-advanced-regexp/

Advanced Regexp app does not reformat amzn.to hostname URLs with tag as suggested above.

10 hours ago, Sonya* said:

Just to mention: word filter does not replace parts of the words. It replaces the whole match only. Partial replacing is not a default feature in IPS, not even in word filters.

Apparently, IC software has a word index table where every word from all the posted content is indexed for search to work with full words as indexed. Search doesn't work with stemming and synonyms like a full-text search server (I posted another topic on this shortcoming to use a stemming class along with a synonym dictionary).

[WebCMS]

On 4/15/2024 at 4:58 PM, WebCMS said:

Well, Link replacement can be made to work with hostname affiliate links as well to inject our own tag/publisherId.

amzn.to/productId => can be reformatted as => amazon.com/dp/prouctId?tag=publisherId

I was incorrect. It is a hash of affiliateId + productId combo after amzn.to (amzn.to/hash) so this cannot be reformatted as I suggested above.

If both Word Filter and Link restrictions are set for the same substring in the ACP, what is their precedence? Which one gets processed first?

In any case, we spend literally thousands of dollars in marketing the site and it doesn't make sense to allow some random spammer to come and post their affiliate links on a clean site for free and make easy money which will also be frowned upon by other users. You are already removing the restricted "tag=" substring from the URL (apparently it is Word Filter that is doing this) and the link gets posted with the restricted substring intact in the underlying link (it displays the link without the substring but goes to the underlying link on clicking it). The same substring should be removed from the underlying link as well to resolve this issue (because moderators will not be tech savvy to figure out what is blocking the post in the cryptic URL) and it will not break the URL if the substring parameter key is removed.

Can Word Filters and Link restrictions be combined into one functionality? if it is a Link, it should work similar to Word Filter and replace the substring in both the display text and underlying link (in addition to "hold for approval" option).

I've seen in the past when a restricted substring in the link existed in the posted content, it goes to moderation. But even after the user removes the objectionable substring and re-submits (before moderation), the post remains in moderation and only a moderator can get it posted (approving the post that was already cleansed by user).