Helps your blog detect where the user comes from and automatically displays the corresponding greetings.
This plugin displays a greeting message to visitors that come from different urls (known as referrers). For example, you may want to welcome Diggers with a message that reminds them to digg your story, or you may want to ask Del.icio.us users to bookmark your post, and so on.
Not only about a cool greeting box, it greatly helps to more efficiently interacts with your readers and build a better relationship between you (your website) and them.
It just doesn’t work!
Sorry to hear that. Try deactivate and then reactivate it. Saving the options may sometimes work.
If things are still bad, please buzz me with more information, like under what circumstances, what are your settings etc. If it’s a bug I will try to fix it.
Will it work with my cache plugin?
It should – just make sure you delete the cache right after plugin activation. Normally, a cache plugin only caches the server content as a static HTML file. As Referrer Detector uses client-side JavaScript, it should work regardless if the page is cached or not. If in any case it doesn’t work with a specific caching plugin, please let me know.
How do I change the default icon? I’m sick of that RSS thing!
The default icon file is wp-content/plugins/referrer-detector/images/icons/default.png. Re-decorate it however you want.
How about the CSS styles of the greeting box?
You can modify /wp-content/plugins/referrer-detector/css/style.css but it’s NOT recommended, as the changes will be lost with each upgrade. Instead, create /wp-content/plugins/referrer-detector-style.css, copy the content from /wp-content/plugins/referrer-detector/css/style.css, and start modifying. Upon starting up, Referrer Detector will check if /wp-content/plugins/referrer-detector-style.css exists first, and use it if it does.
The default RSS link is incorrect! My feed is served through FeedBurner!
Oops… I’m sorry. The default RSS link is automatically retrieved from your WordPress settings, so I can’t have any idea about your FeedBurner url. In this case I’m afraid you’ll have to update the default entries manually… well, until I find another way around this.
I place the PHP code `if (function_exists(‘referrer_detector’)) referrer_detector(); ` into my theme. Now the author and category tags won’t turn into proper values anymore?
This should happen if you place the code in the index.php file, and your home page is showing multiple posts/excerpts. In such a case the plugin don’t know which post to retrieve those author and category data from, so it decides to get only the common data available: the page URL and title.
Is there a limit to the number of entries (referrers)?
Virtually no. However, as the entries data is saved into a javascript file, too many entries will make that file bloated, and this may affect your page’s loading speed.
I messed the entries up! How can I restore the default entries back?
Version 2.1 introduces this feature already. Use it wisely though, as it’s a one-way action.
How does the “merge entries” feature work?
The selected entries’ URLs will be merged into one, seperated by commas. Other information (icon, name, greeting text) is taken from the oldest entry. In fact they should be the same (so that merging makes sense) so there should be no problem.
Why is an “explode entry” not available?
I doubt there’s a need to explode one entry into seperated ones… but if commonly requested, I will implement it.
Why does the plugin sometimes detect wrong country and give the wrong localized message?
The country detection relies from HostIP.info service. For this reason, if the service fails to indicate the correct country, my plugin fails to give the correct message.
Where did you get the icons?
Instead of grabbing them from FastIcon, I did them myself for my own sake 🙂 If you want to create more icons with the same style, here is the original PSD file.
Just curious, how did you test this plugin? You don’t have back links from all of those referrers, yes?
Of course I don’t – I’m not that famous. Instead, I use the great Firebug to inspect and modify a link on those sites to link to my post, and there I have a good referrer 😉 If you have a better and quicker solution, please let me know.
I like this plugin. How do I support its development?
Thank you! Please consider putting a link back to my blog. And please note – the initial credits go to Thaya Kareeson and his great WP Greet Box plugin.