GiftLinkUp.com

6/13/2015

I've decided to let my hosting account for GiftLinkUp.com expire.

It has long ceased to be a useful site for me personally, and there is not a huge user base which will be affected by it going offline. The site was originally developed in 2006 using the .NET 2.0 Framework with a SQL Server database. While focusing more of microcontroller projects, I simply haven't had the time to update it to keep it current with new development trends like MVC, Social Network integration, and other techniques for targeting mobile users.

In the meantime, sites like Wishlistr and Amazon's own wish list have emerged as superior alternatives to GiftLinkUp.com, so my users will at least have a place to go after GiftLinkUp.com goes the way of idvSports.com. At least this time, I won't have to help carry the servers out of the office while the CEO is breaking the news to everyone (true story!).

I considered leaving it up and running since the hosting fees through GoDaddy are minimal but I felt better about publishing the code here and passing the torch to anyone who might want to start working on it. See below for the web code and database schema.

Since this was a side project, there is no documentation to speak of, however in the coming weeks I will publish some details about the database schema.

The Secret Sauce

In terms of monetization, the site would inspect the URL of the gift entered and if I had an affiliate/referral account with that vendor, it would scrub the URL and inject my affiliate ID into the URL. This would give me credit for a "conversion" when ultimately the person who buys the gift clicks on the link. Below is the relevant code from Helper.vb:

Amazon Affiliate Link Manipulation

97 Private Shared Function ExtractAmazonASIN(ByVal s As String) As String

98 Dim target As String = "name=""ASIN"""

99 Dim loc As Integer = s.IndexOf(target)

100 Dim i As Integer

101

102 Dim openTagloc As Integer

103 Dim closeTagloc As Integer

104 For i = loc To 0 Step -1

105 If s.Chars(i) = "<" Then

106 openTagloc = i

107 Exit For

108 End If

109 Next

110

111 For i = loc To s.Length

112 If s.Chars(i) = ">" Then

113 closeTagloc = i + 1

114 Exit For

115 End If

116 Next

117

118 Dim tag As String = s.Substring(openTagloc, (closeTagloc - openTagloc))

119

120 target = "value="""

121 loc = tag.IndexOf(target)

122 Dim valueattribute As String = tag.Substring(loc + Len(target))

123

124 Dim finalASIN As String = ""

125 i = 0

126 Do Until valueattribute.Chars(i) = """"

127 finalASIN = finalASIN & valueattribute.Chars(i)

128 i = i + 1

129 Loop

130

131 Return finalASIN

132 End Function

133

134 Private Shared Function GenerateAmazonLink(ByVal ASIN As String) As String

135 Return "http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/" & ASIN & "?ie=UTF8&tag=!!!your amazon affiliate link here!!!&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=" & ASIN

136 End Function

The other somewhat obvious monetization of the site could come from running analytics on the wish lists for a large user base. Placing ads on the site for suggested gift ideas could be a pretty powerful mechanism. For example, "people who asked for baby toys might also be interested in baby monitors or sleep aid devices" - Amazon does this already, and may even have an API for this.