Placing links in wordpress

[StephenT]

I alluded to this in another post somewhere, but I wanted to focus on it a bit.

When ever I try to put affiliate links in my wordpress, especially the text and image type links, the never work. I was reading SAH this morning and Rosalind says to just copy and paste your links. Well it might work for her, but I don't know the secret. If I want image I have to copy the image to my 'puter and then upload the image. If I want to use the link, I have to cut out the<a href=.... until I get to the http://. I copy that part and insert the link and it works.

Now this is fine, I have done it several times, but there must be a way to do as Rosalind says and just copy and paste. Does anyone know what the secret is? I can still do it the other way, it just bugs me that I can't do it more simply.

[angienewton]

Haven't seen your other post but to get the html into a post, you need to be in the html part of the post. I'm not sure if the version matters but I'm using Wordpress 2.8.4.

When you go to edit a post, at the very top right side you'll see two tabs, visual and html. To get the html code to work, you have to plug it in there.

As for the image, I save to my computer, upload to wordpress and then there is a space/box for you to add a link above insert into post button. I think the other way to do it to actually use the html code is you have to upload the image to your hosting/cpanel account for it to work. That I'm not 100% sure.

Am I making any sense?

[retta719]

The visual editor is notorious for messing up links and code, sometimes even when you've entered it on the HTML tab, I disable the visual editor on all my blogs just because it's always borking up my code.

[StephenT]

Haven't seen your other post but to get the html into a post, you need to be in the html part of the post. I'm not sure if the version matters but I'm using Wordpress 2.8.4.

When you go to edit a post, at the very top right side you'll see two tabs, visual and html. To get the html code to work, you have to plug it in there.

As for the image, I save to my computer, upload to wordpress and then there is a space/box for you to add a link above insert into post button. I think the other way to do it to actually use the html code is you have to upload the image to your hosting/cpanel account for it to work. That I'm not 100% sure.

Am I making any sense?

I am also using 2.8.4 What you describe doing is what I do now. I hadn't thought about uploading the image into the host. However, What happens, if anything, is most often a 404 page not found.

I have tried it both in html and visual and neither works!

[AffiliateMax]

Hi Steve - one option would be to use a WP plug-in affiliate link cloaker like Go codes or Pretty link?
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/gocodes/
http://blairwilliams.com/pretty-link/

[marksierra]

Steve,

Let me make sure I'm following you correctly. You're saying that you copy all of the code you need for your affiliate link (from the opening < to the closing >) and you paste that into your post editor using the HTML tab? And it STILL doesn't work, meaning that the link doesn't take you where it's supposed to?

And when exactly are you getting the 404 error? When you insert the code for the image (like the image doesn't show up at all) or when you actually click the link?

I presume that the images you are using are hosted on the affiliate servers. So try this: extract out just the path to the image itself and paste that into the address of your browser. If the image doesn't show up, then you know the problem is not on your end.

Do the same thing for the link, too.

Sorry for the questions, but I'm baffled as to why you're having such difficulty and want to make sure I understand the situation clearly enough to help.

[StephenT]

That's pretty much it Mark. If I copy the code from the affiliate program, say Amazon, What I get is a little mark next to where I really wanted the link to be. If I click that little oval, I get the 404. I don't copy all the code inside the <> I cut out the anchor part of it and just leave the http://

[marksierra]

That's pretty much it Mark. If I copy the code from the affiliate program, say Amazon, What I get is a little mark next to where I really wanted the link to be. If I click that little oval, I get the 404. I don't copy all the code inside the <> I cut out the anchor part of it and just leave the http://

Okay, you lost me at the oval. What's that about?

And as for the URL, why are you leaving the http:// off? Is it because when you make a link the http:// is included by default in WP?

Did you try just pasting the link into your browser to see if the problem is on their end?

I'm sure the answer is staring right at us. We'll figure it out!

[StephenT]

Mark, you are IT! you said something that made me think and I got it! I was trying to use the link button and that was the problem! If you just paste the code into the html editor, it works just fine!

[marksierra]

Woo-hoo! Glad to be part of the solution!