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DealDotCom WordPress Plugin

written by John Chow on September 21, 2007

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BlueFur Webhosting is the first to come out with a DealDotCom WordPress plugin. The plugin creates a banner to display the current deal being offered by DealDotCom. Clicking on the banner takes you to the DealDotCom site so you can buy today’s item. Here is an example of the banner it creates.

deal-banner.png

The banner, available in text and graphical versions, links to DealDotCom using your affiliate ID so you get credit for any resulting sales. Installation is extremely easy. Just download, unzip, upload to your plugins folder and activate. Then go to WordPress options to enter your affiliate ID and choose between text or graphical banner. There’s also option to customize the text and border colors plus set the width of the banner.

Once all the options are set, call up the banner by adding <?php dealdotcom(); ?> to the area of your blog where you want the banner to appear. The most logical location would be the sidebar. For those who don’t know what DealDotCom is, then check out this blog post for a refresher.

Download DealDtoCom WordPress Plugin

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{ 67 comments }

PropertyIreland September 21, 2007 at 5:00 pm

Great idea, only a matter of time before someone did it…hope it gives BlueFur a lot of link love and lots of referral sales…

SEO Optimization September 21, 2007 at 5:18 pm

You should actually hope that it raises your sales and makes you make cash (at least thats the reason of this plugin to be installed). But yeah, the link love is not bad (even tho BlueFur is getting some link love from John since they host his site).

Danny @ Blogs For Money September 22, 2007 at 11:35 am

Is there any version of this for non-WP users? Maybe via a javascript include? Some of us use better blog engines (:evil:) so it’d be cool if we could use it too!

John Chow September 22, 2007 at 12:11 pm

There are only two types on the bloggers on the Net. Those who use Wordpress and those who wish they use Wordpress. Which one are you? :twisted:

Googlelady September 21, 2007 at 7:04 pm

I am sure this will get more than love links. This is the purpose why they created this plugin no? :wink:

Raymond September 22, 2007 at 10:56 am

DealDotCom again? I don’t see anything on the site that is worth buying that isn’t already available for free through your own research. It’s getting old.. :???:

Wahlau.NET September 29, 2007 at 12:42 am

I am pretty sure they will get some linky love…

this will be a good plugin for those who are thinking of promoting Dealdc

John Cow September 21, 2007 at 5:04 pm

Does it come in green too ?

John Chow September 21, 2007 at 5:10 pm

The banner has customizable text and border colors.

SEO Optimization September 21, 2007 at 5:23 pm

Does it display a code or something to call the banner? Just wondering if it can be mixed up with the gotbanners plugin (which would be good).

John Chow September 21, 2007 at 5:32 pm

Yes you should be able to enter the php code into Gotbanner and it should work. But don’t hold me to that.

SEO Optimization September 21, 2007 at 6:23 pm

Okey, I will give it a try and let everyone know here if it works ;)

SEO Optimization September 21, 2007 at 6:30 pm

Its lovely, but haven’t tested it yet with the gotbanners plugin in combination as i see the dealdotcom banners height cannot be set.

Kanute September 22, 2007 at 5:37 am

Try and see it for yourself :grin:

SEO Optimization September 22, 2007 at 10:11 am

Wow, that was smart.

MyBlogCotest September 21, 2007 at 6:54 pm

Hey John!
I saw your picture on news stand! Does MingPao interviewed you? Which release will you on?

The headline is “this blogger makes $17,000 a month.”

That’s great! You now not olny get on English media but also Chinese media. :mrgreen:

John Chow September 22, 2007 at 12:15 am

Yes I was interviewed by the Ming Pao. The issue is on newsstands tomorrow (Saturday). How did you see it already?

MyBlogCotest September 22, 2007 at 8:51 am

That just an advertise not the released nespaper :mrgreen:
Good job!! I will check it today :mrgreen:

Israel September 21, 2007 at 5:13 pm

good idea.

MoneyNing September 21, 2007 at 5:14 pm

Great! Been looking for one!

Lori September 21, 2007 at 5:35 pm

Is there somewhere that can tell me exactly where to place the php code in my sidbar. I placed it above categories but nothing is showing up. I have no knowledge of php, css, etc. :oops: Help would be appreciated.

Scoot September 21, 2007 at 6:32 pm

Yeah Lori, I’m having the same issue.

Lori September 21, 2007 at 7:25 pm

I’ve looked for a solution but am coming up empty. Not sure what the deal is.

Scoot September 21, 2007 at 8:01 pm

They must have a glitch to figure out. That’s too bad it was the only way that I know for me to get it on my word press program. Hey John where’s YOUR deal dot com badge? :grin:

John Chow September 22, 2007 at 12:05 am

Find a place in your sidebar.php file and place it there.

Lori September 22, 2007 at 6:09 am

I did place is the sidebar.php but it’s still now showing up. I put it above the category php code.

Nathen September 22, 2007 at 8:18 am

You can always use a widget to display the DealDotCom product. You have to use a widget that takes php code though. I found one that the Samsarin Php Widget works well in this case. That’s what I’m using until the DealDotCom plugin is updated with a widget of it’s own.

http://blog.samsarin.com/samsarin-php-widget

Lori September 22, 2007 at 8:44 am

Hi Nathan..Thank you, it works perfectly but I do a question. I noticed yours is customized..blends in and doesn’t look so much like an ad. Could you tell me how to do this? You can reply here or email me at Lori@bloggingcents.com Thanks!

Nathen September 23, 2007 at 1:09 pm

Glad to hear it worked for you Lori. As to your question about the customization, all I did was go into the options screen for the plugin and set the border color to FFFFFF and selected Text as the plugin style. I wasn’t quite sure why the graphic continued to appear after selecting Text, but I was satisfied with the appearance.

Chris Jacobson September 21, 2007 at 5:47 pm

John, you’re getting sloppy. I blogged about this yesterday. :mrgreen:

Googlelady September 21, 2007 at 7:00 pm

LOL the same here, even I am at the top if someone search for dealdotcom plugin :roll:

Anthony C September 21, 2007 at 6:03 pm

Nice plugin! Very interested in testing it! I’ll add it into my new blog when its launched :D

Chris Jacobson September 21, 2007 at 6:10 pm

It’s already launched.

browie September 21, 2007 at 6:08 pm

I knew that wouldn’t take long.

Shaun C September 21, 2007 at 6:50 pm

Ah, if only I had enough traffic about stuff like that to use it for. :)

Googlelady September 21, 2007 at 7:02 pm

I didn’t test it yet but it seems a good plugin and good work for BlueFur, I am sure they are working strong to get higher ranks in the SERP’s (a hosting company always need that to increase their sales and not paying huge amounts on ppc).

Dan September 21, 2007 at 8:11 pm

You could make the first 2 or 3 comments DIV thinner and place one of those banners to the left of them. Would be an interesting way to monetize the comments here ;)

Etienne Teo September 21, 2007 at 8:17 pm

Another great tool to make money out of dealdotcom! :wink:

web affiliate September 21, 2007 at 8:30 pm

John Chow Own Deal Dot Com! evilocity!

web affiliate September 21, 2007 at 8:31 pm

Etienne Teo – you’re deal dot com affiliate #2 and adding your affiliate on John Chow’s blog? ohh the shammme!

max September 21, 2007 at 8:33 pm

Cool…I am gonna use this! thanks John! :evil: :evil: :evil:

thewild1 September 21, 2007 at 9:02 pm

there are wp plugins for everything

Blog Contests September 21, 2007 at 9:26 pm

Very nice plugin – well done to Blue Feur

GettyCash September 21, 2007 at 10:33 pm

Nice tool :wink:

TravelMalacca September 21, 2007 at 10:50 pm

Very nice… :lol:
too bad, i don’t have WordPress :sad:

Googlelady September 22, 2007 at 2:35 am

I highly recommend to start using wordpress is really a great blog software.

Kanute September 24, 2007 at 2:12 am

Great advice, wordpress is highly recommended

CatherineL September 21, 2007 at 11:52 pm

Thanks John – I might try this plugin. I wasn’t going to join DealDotCom until you posted your great results.

Making The Money September 22, 2007 at 12:33 am

I’m getting fed up with clogging up my sidebar. I’ll write something myself so that I can include the current offer on a page of its own.

boringman September 22, 2007 at 1:11 am

Is there any banner with blogspot ???

Angel September 22, 2007 at 3:30 am

Can we have less posts about Deal Dot Com?

Raymond September 22, 2007 at 10:57 am

I agree….less posts about this particular topic…

Kanute September 22, 2007 at 5:35 am

It seems to be a nice plugin, do you have it working on this blog?

Googlelady September 22, 2007 at 6:00 am

The picture that you see in this post is the plugin, I am right jc?

Kanute September 22, 2007 at 6:40 am

I write on Linux and Open Source, I don’t know how i could benefit from such a plugin. If the picture is the plugin then those who write on money making should pick it up immediately.

Home Recording September 22, 2007 at 7:01 am

I think that I shall wait till this issue is clarified fully. Can we get some more time on this product?

10 Minute Opt-in Success September 22, 2007 at 7:34 am

I have a question about this, because if you are not the person who originally referred the person who buys the deal of the day, do you still get a commission?

Or is this just a way to get more deals out there?

Just asking.

Micheal Savoie
jvalertnews.com

Gary R. Hess September 22, 2007 at 10:37 am

This widget is nice, but has a few bugs in it. It looks like three different developers created it…

At some parts it tries to use css, then it jumps over to tables and using html font tags. It also changes from using strong and b.

The bug within the graphic link is that the code says the link should be the same color as you input for all text, but then it is in the wrong heirorical position, and uses the on-page text color for the link instead. So if you have your regular font color as white, the font color within the dealdotcom banner will be white.

To change this, scroll down to line 65 and delete the html font tag, then add the css color element to the a tag. You may need to do this in more than one place.

Gary R. Hess September 22, 2007 at 11:14 am

For anyone else having problems with the colors within the DealDotCom plugin, I created a post on how to fix some of the CSS/HTML hierarchy problems.
How to fix the DealDotCom WordPress Plugin

Googlelady September 22, 2007 at 11:35 am

Johnchow nice implementation in the footer of each post ;)

Matt September 22, 2007 at 1:56 pm

You should really use this code to put it in your theme (version 0.6 comes with a Widget):

<?php
if ( function_exists( 'dealdotcom' ) ) {
dealdotcom();
}
?>

That way if you disable the plugin, but forget to remove the code, then there won’t be any errors and your theme won’t get messed up (because of the errors).

Matt September 22, 2007 at 1:57 pm

It appears WP-Affiliate-Pro is messing with the code… In the code above, nothing should be capitalized.

Henrik Blunck September 22, 2007 at 4:51 pm

Could anyone ever be in doubt as to what DealDOTCom is? :-D

After the excellent work every active marketeer has done it couldn’t possibly be a surprise? :mrgreen:

KingJacob September 22, 2007 at 11:01 pm

Its really an easy plugin to make I just wish I had thought to make it so I could be getting all the linklove, good thinking BlueFur

Brad September 23, 2007 at 11:03 am

Does not work for me…. When I click manual update I get the following error in the WP control panel.

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: wp_next_scheduled_event() in e:\………\blog\wp-content\plugins\dealdotcom\dealdotcom.php on line 68

Otherwise I get a blank banner with no price or product details… so this plugin is canned for me…

Bill September 23, 2007 at 5:45 pm

I ordered the WP Affiliate Pro module and could never get it working on my website. I’ve sent 5 emails to the author, Robert, (or their support) stating the program is not working (they said it was a problem on ‘some’ sites) and now I cannot get an email back from them after numerous complaints. I want a refund.

What recourse do I have and should I take to get my refund from either DealDotCom or the author robert@plrpro.com? I’ll start posting on various blogs and web sites as needed, but hope to have a simple solution like getting my refund.

Any help or ideas appreciated.

typedrobin October 5, 2007 at 3:28 pm

Try this one http://dealdotcom.aholic.ws/ ,
The DealDotCom Widget !
No WP needed.