Usually for Monday’s Reader Question Sessions I pick and choose which question to answer. However, today there was an overwhelming number of questions in the comments and my inbox, all about the same thing. And, since I’m a big proponent of the “give the people what they want” school of thought, it seemed foolish to discuss anything else. So, for all of you who have asked:

Are you using a WordPress plugin for the Friday Phrase auctions? If so, which one?

Here’s your answer… Link a Dink!

Many of you have asked if I’m using the WP Affiliate Pro plugin that was featured on Dealdotcom and mentioned on a few websites. The truth is, I wanted to, in fact I have a copy of the plugin, unfortunately it does not create search friendly URL’s. I was told that they were aware of this limitation and planned to address it in a future version. But for now, I was forced to look elsewhere.  I also found a plugin called aLinks but that looked more complicated than what I needed and I wasn’t really interested in the Amazon, eBay, etc links.

Finally I found Link a Dink which not only created search engine friendly URLs but it also was simple to install and just as easy to use. Also the update notes answered a couple of the questions I had such as would it interfere with existing links (it won’t) and will it affect the text in the comments (it does). Link a Dink is far from perfect, and there are a couple of features or options I’d like to have (the ability to limit the number of links on a given page etc.), but it certainly gets the job done for now. Who knows, after a couple of months of Friday Phrase Auction income maybe I’ll hire a programmer to write one to my own specifications.

Another plugin that I’ve not yet played around with that looks like it might very well work for this type of thing is Smart Link by Semiologic. Had I come across this option before Link a Dink I might very well have used this one. It’s free and appears to offer a bit more advanced options. If any of you readers out there try it or have used it in the past, be sure to let us know what you thought of it. Also, if you know of any other plugins that would do the same type of thing, please share that as well. The more options we have to choose from, the better.

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