NATS, encoded vs non-encoded URLS
 

I have a database of FHG links that I imported from sponsors. I want to be able to allow a friend to use the same database but it has all my affiliate codes in there. Is it possible to change the URL and replace his affiliate code if it is encoded?

Is it encoded or encrypted? Meaning is it proprietary and can I do this, or am I forced to recreate my database with the unencoded URLs? Anyone know the format/algorithm for this?

I personally like the encoded because it looks better, but are there other reasons people choose the encoded rather than the unencoded? Is this some kind of security / fraud thing as well?

can you not just replace the string?

and i do think theres a person or service that has done this...

Yes, it is. You have to base64decode it, replace the affiliate id then base64encode it again. It's very easy actually. Just don't forget to remove trailing "="'s from the encoded string.

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Thanks, didn't realize it was so simple. What do the different fields mean?

From the encoded there's:
STRING, param1, param2, param3, param4

It looks like param 4 is the gallery id, what are the other ones? One of them is probably the campaign code I'm guessing.

Also, decoding the string results in 3 additional fields:
[param a]:[param b]:[param c]

What do these mean / correspond to?

(affiliate id):(campaign id):(site id)

thanks :)

WTF? lol, now I know why I didn't become a programmer!

Don't forget that the encoded URLs generally use the database entry id, which is auto_increment. Basically, get the last value, pad it with =, as apropos (although PHP will base64_decode a stripped string/value), and just affil:campaign:site (plus optional 4 comma terminated)

i was thinking about the same thing earlier...anyone know the answer?