Creating link table

Anon

Hi,

I have a MySQL database table with Affiliate Links.
For example, the columns of this table are :
Id, Name of merchant, link.

Basically, the id is a number, the name of the merchant is a word(eg. Amazon) and the link is the actual link(eg. eg. http://www.amazon.com/books/12425125, etc.)

What I need help on is creating a PHP script that lets users click on these links WITHOUT showing the actually link(since it's VERY long). I want it only to show the link.php3?id=1 link, which will go to the site upon clicked.

Bascically, I want a link such as :
http://www.mysite.com/link.php3?id=1

if id=1 was amazon's link, then I want the user to go directly to the amazon link upon clicking the http://www.mysite.com/link.php3?id=1
link.

My problem now is that whenever I want put a link on my page, I have to put the actually link from my database to my page(eg. http://www.amazon.com/books/12421412, etc.). I can't seem to get http://mysite.com/link.php3?id=1 to link directly to http://www.amazon.com/books/12421412, etc.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Anon

Hi you shoule use link tables like id, address, comment etc. where are values like
1, www.amazon.com/yourpage/mypage.htm, my link

then you can use query like: SELECT * FROM address WHERE id='$id'

Lauri
Hope helped you out.

Anon

If I've understood your needs. You don't want the link to be shown in the browser address bar or seen anywhere in the page. Correct me if I'm wrong.

You may process as follow:

1 - In your master link page insert a link like http://.../link.php3?id=1 ( or any id number )
2 - In the link.php3
Query your database to retrieve the real link from the id number

SELECT url
FROM url_table
WHERE id = '$id'

The use fopen($url,"r") to open the url and fread to read it .Then process the output and print it to stdout.

or use directly readfile($url) to read the file and write it to standard output

JBL

Anon

Why not make it simple.
Instead of linking to a second page on YOUR server, use javaScript.

<a href="javascript:goURL{'<? echo $affilate_url ?>')" onMouseOver="window.status='<? echo $nice_url ?>';return true" onMouseOut="window.status='';return true"><? echo $name_of_URL ?></a>

where $affilate_url, $nice_url, $name_of_URL
are variables from you db of affilate URLs.

[ not 100% sure about the syntax in the JavaScript (and frames and stuff) ]

Give it a try, IF this was what you wanted.

Anon

I'm not sure Geo Chang wants the direct URL to be present in the page.

Geo Chang ?

Anon

I think your suggestions will work....i'll give it a try.

Basically, I need to use a database to organize my links in terms of category and sites, etc.

But some of my links are very long(over 200 characters), so I want a link such as http://www.mysite.com/link.php3?id=1

so that I can put such a link in emails instead of having an extremely long link(likehttp://www.amazon.com/books/12421441241, etc.).

thanx

from what you people recommended, I think it'll work, if not, I hope I cleared up any misunderstanding.

thanx again

Anon

oh...one more thing

when I click http://www.mysite.com/link.php3?id=1

it should go directly to the amazon site, not call up another page with the amazon link.

thanx

Anon

"it should go directly to the amazon site, not call up another page with the amazon link."

Well, there's no way you're going to be able to do that without JavaScript.
Clientside vs. Serverside scripting.

Anon

You shouldn't have to fiddle with javascript and other stuff just to redirect users.

In your link.php3 file, have it fetch the corresponding URL from the database for $id, and then use the PHP header() function to redirect them:

<?
$url = [code to fetch $id's url from database here]

header("Location: $url");
?>

All done 🙂

--Ryan

Anon

Okay, I found a site with a good example.

Go to http://www.savings-center.com

when you move your mouse over the links on the left side(eg. $10 off $30)
you see that the link looks something like http://www.savingscenter.com/links.php3?id=4667

However, when you click the link, it goes directly to the intended site(eg. Amazon, CdNow, etc.)

Basically, that is what I am trrying to achieve.
However, I don't know whether this is with PHP coding or am I suppose to put something in my links database??

thanx