I am new to WSN Links. Please forgive me if my questions have been asked before, I searched on them, but was not able to find answers.
To give a little background, I will be migrating a legacy site built on Gossamer Links SQL to WSN Links. The data should be fairly easy, but I expect moving the design to be excruciating.
I have some data/admin questions/issues for the time being:
Firstly, I was playing with the data structure and added some categories and sub categories. Now, I am suddenly not able to add any sub-categories, only Top level categories. Please advise how to get this to function again or tell me what I did to mess it up in the first place.
Next:
1. Is there a switch to remove the link counts from next to the categories or is it something I will need to edit out in the templates?
2. I am trying to maintain the directory structure I had in Links SQL. In using mod_rewrite, is there a way to have the capitalization of category names and links to be literal? For example, if the name is "Category X" how can I get it to generate as Category_X rather than category_x which is what is doing right now.
3. In Links SQL, you were able to obfuscate all outgoing urls using jump.cgi. Is something like this possible. This way, all links appear to be internal.
4. Is it possible to track hits/clicks without showing them on the pages? In other words, is there a way to have traffic/click stats without displaying them to the average user?
5. Is it possible to have two category columns with data flowing vertically instead of horizontally? For example:
A E B F C G D H
Any help or insight anyone can offer is greatly appreciated!
Ok, so I solved the category issue I was having. I had turned off the "Category selector for 'Suggest' pages*" switch because I thought it would have an impact on server load. (I have a lot of categories.) I turned it back on and the sub-cats became enabled again in the Add Category screen.
Also, in the manual I found how to display my categories vertically. However, I have not implemented this yet.
The suggest/edit pages get so many fewer views that they're not server load issues. Just with > 1000 categories the list fails to fully generate. With the switch off, you have to navigate to the desired category to click the submit link there. (An alternative form of selector which works with tens of thousands of categories is coming in 4.2.)
1. You'll need to edit the templates -- "main index" and "show links in category".
2. Admin -> Settings -> SEO, change the "always use lowercase?" option to "no".
3. This seems a lot more like a curse than a feature to me, why would you want to do it? Submitters are reluctant to trade links with a site that doesn't give them a real link. You actually can use <a href="link.php?id={LINKID}"> to discourage people from submitting if you really want to, it's simply a leftover option from the < 4.1 versions when I hadn't figured out how to count hits out while using a direct link. However, even the link.php redirect sets a 301 HTTP header which I believe google at least properly counts pagerank for (though I've seen debate, and submitters won't be sure it'll transfer properly). Without that 301 header your site could end up de-listing from google the homepages of sites it linked to, if link.php had a higher pagerank than their homepage (this would obviously make people very angry).
4. To do that, you'd need to leave hits switched on and then edit them out (or enclose them in a usergroup/admin-only conditional) everywhere they're displayed in the templates (the link bit and the link details templates are the only places that come to mind).
Thanks for your response. So far I am extremely impressed with both the script and also with your support responsiveness.
Regarding my previous post:
Any word on when 4.2 will be available? I expect to have several thousand categories very soon and I expect the alternative selector should be most helpful for me.
Points 1 and 2: Thanks, I will edit as needed.
3. I won't be using the script for PPC or reciprocal links. We don't really except submissions, only suggestions - then we would enter them in to meet our format. As such, it is actually to my benefit to keep the links internal rather than external. This way, it makes it impossible for someone to scrape our links.
4. I will edit my templates accordingly. Is there an area in the admin to view link click stats, or is the only way to see them by conditionally editing the templates so that only admins can see clicks?
Comments on Newbie Questions
Member
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: May 08, 2008
Total Topics: 5
Total Comments: 18
Hi,
I am new to WSN Links. Please forgive me if my questions have been asked before, I searched on them, but was not able to find answers.
To give a little background, I will be migrating a legacy site built on Gossamer Links SQL to WSN Links. The data should be fairly easy, but I expect moving the design to be excruciating.
I have some data/admin questions/issues for the time being:
Firstly, I was playing with the data structure and added some categories and sub categories. Now, I am suddenly not able to add any sub-categories, only Top level categories. Please advise how to get this to function again or tell me what I did to mess it up in the first place.
Next:
1. Is there a switch to remove the link counts from next to the categories or is it something I will need to edit out in the templates?
2. I am trying to maintain the directory structure I had in Links SQL. In using mod_rewrite, is there a way to have the capitalization of category names and links to be literal? For example, if the name is "Category X" how can I get it to generate as Category_X rather than category_x which is what is doing right now.
3. In Links SQL, you were able to obfuscate all outgoing urls using jump.cgi. Is something like this possible. This way, all links appear to be internal.
4. Is it possible to track hits/clicks without showing them on the pages? In other words, is there a way to have traffic/click stats without displaying them to the average user?
5. Is it possible to have two category columns with data flowing vertically instead of horizontally? For example:
A E
B F
C G
D H
Any help or insight anyone can offer is greatly appreciated!
Thanks!
Member
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: May 08, 2008
Total Topics: 5
Total Comments: 18
Ok, so I solved the category issue I was having. I had turned off the "Category selector for 'Suggest' pages*" switch because I thought it would have an impact on server load. (I have a lot of categories.) I turned it back on and the sub-cats became enabled again in the Add Category screen.
Also, in the manual I found how to display my categories vertically. However, I have not implemented this yet.
developer
Usergroup: Administrator
Joined: Dec 20, 2001
Location: Diamond Springs, California
Total Topics: 61
Total Comments: 7868
I thought it would have an impact on server load.
The suggest/edit pages get so many fewer views that they're not server load issues. Just with > 1000 categories the list fails to fully generate. With the switch off, you have to navigate to the desired category to click the submit link there. (An alternative form of selector which works with tens of thousands of categories is coming in 4.2.)
1. You'll need to edit the templates -- "main index" and "show links in category".
2. Admin -> Settings -> SEO, change the "always use lowercase?" option to "no".
3. This seems a lot more like a curse than a feature to me, why would you want to do it? Submitters are reluctant to trade links with a site that doesn't give them a real link. You actually can use <a href="link.php?id={LINKID}"> to discourage people from submitting if you really want to, it's simply a leftover option from the < 4.1 versions when I hadn't figured out how to count hits out while using a direct link. However, even the link.php redirect sets a 301 HTTP header which I believe google at least properly counts pagerank for (though I've seen debate, and submitters won't be sure it'll transfer properly). Without that 301 header your site could end up de-listing from google the homepages of sites it linked to, if link.php had a higher pagerank than their homepage (this would obviously make people very angry).
4. To do that, you'd need to leave hits switched on and then edit them out (or enclose them in a usergroup/admin-only conditional) everywhere they're displayed in the templates (the link bit and the link details templates are the only places that come to mind).
Member
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: May 08, 2008
Total Topics: 5
Total Comments: 18
Hi Paul,
Thanks for your response. So far I am extremely impressed with both the script and also with your support responsiveness.
Regarding my previous post:
Any word on when 4.2 will be available? I expect to have several thousand categories very soon and I expect the alternative selector should be most helpful for me.
Points 1 and 2: Thanks, I will edit as needed.
3. I won't be using the script for PPC or reciprocal links. We don't really except submissions, only suggestions - then we would enter them in to meet our format. As such, it is actually to my benefit to keep the links internal rather than external. This way, it makes it impossible for someone to scrape our links.
4. I will edit my templates accordingly. Is there an area in the admin to view link click stats, or is the only way to see them by conditionally editing the templates so that only admins can see clicks?
Thanks again!
developer
Usergroup: Administrator
Joined: Dec 20, 2001
Location: Diamond Springs, California
Total Topics: 61
Total Comments: 7868
Pre-releases are available now, see pinned thread if you don't mind questionable stability. Stable release will be this summer.
3. Doesn't make it impossible by any means, just a little less common since they'd need a scraper that was written to follow redirects.
4. There are no click-viewing areas that I recall.
Member
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: May 08, 2008
Total Topics: 5
Total Comments: 18
Thanks!
Member
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: May 08, 2008
Total Topics: 5
Total Comments: 18
Hi Paul,
Actually, I am not looking for a redirect, I am looking for a complete url mask. Can this be done?
Thanks!
developer
Usergroup: Administrator
Joined: Dec 20, 2001
Location: Diamond Springs, California
Total Topics: 61
Total Comments: 7868
What do you mean by "complete URL mask"? How does it differ from a redirect?
Member
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: May 08, 2008
Total Topics: 5
Total Comments: 18
Hi Paul,
Thanks for your response. I would prefer that no part of the actual "real" link appear in the url.
For instance, with Gossamer Links, the links look like this:
http://www.mysite.com/cgi-bin/site/jump.cgi?ID=1825
rather than showing any actual reference to the real link url.
Thanks!
Member
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: May 08, 2008
Total Topics: 5
Total Comments: 18
Hi Paul,
The light bulb just went off! I re-read your e-mail and it appears that your instructions are already giving me what I looking for.
Thanks again!