Amazon long form URLs February 18, 2011 1:39 PM Subscribe
Amazonian Pony. URL's with the book titles in?
It it possible to use the long-form URLs from amazon that show the book title while retaining metafilters referrer code? Or is there a reason we don't do this? I often mouseover (especially on iphone or in instapaper versions) and am curious about the title of the book, but don't want to or cant open a new window.
It it possible to use the long-form URLs from amazon that show the book title while retaining metafilters referrer code? Or is there a reason we don't do this? I often mouseover (especially on iphone or in instapaper versions) and am curious about the title of the book, but don't want to or cant open a new window.
(That is, of course, unless fewer click-throughs will hurt MetaFilter in some way.)
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:51 PM on February 18, 2011
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:51 PM on February 18, 2011
We might be able to come up with a less destructive way of transforming Amazon links, but it's tricky. If the user puts in an affiliate tag it's easy, we just replace theirs with ours. If they don't, the path is less clear. There are dozens of ways to link to something at Amazon. Some use querystring variables (ie.
I'm afraid if we tried to preserve Amazon links we'd be playing and endless whack-a-mole with the various ways of linking to Amazon products.
posted by pb (staff) at 1:51 PM on February 18, 2011
asin=xxxx&creative=blah) some use folder paths (ie. dp/asin/xxxx/creative/blah. So we sidestep having to figure out those myriad methods with a very simple replace along the lines of: if amazon.com and product id, [write URL like this].I'm afraid if we tried to preserve Amazon links we'd be playing and endless whack-a-mole with the various ways of linking to Amazon products.
posted by pb (staff) at 1:51 PM on February 18, 2011
Is there any way to display the title of the Amazon webpage when hovering over the link? (I don't know that this helps iphone people though.)
posted by desjardins at 2:02 PM on February 18, 2011
posted by desjardins at 2:02 PM on February 18, 2011
No, but there's probably a Greasemonkey script for that. (And no, that wouldn't help on iPhones.)
posted by pb (staff) at 2:04 PM on February 18, 2011
posted by pb (staff) at 2:04 PM on February 18, 2011
Well, I said No pretty quick. If we wanted to be extremely fancy and contact the Amazon API separately for each Amazon link submitted, we could probably find a way to do it. But I'm not sure it'd be worth the potential wonkiness during posting.
posted by pb (staff) at 2:09 PM on February 18, 2011
posted by pb (staff) at 2:09 PM on February 18, 2011
Could we at least ask people to post the titles of books and things they're suggesting before their link? Not that I don't love you, MeFi, but I don't want to click on something and have to correct my Amazon history just to find out the title. I just don't click Amazon links if I see them.
posted by cmgonzalez at 2:37 PM on February 18, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by cmgonzalez at 2:37 PM on February 18, 2011 [1 favorite]
I don't want to click on something and have to correct my Amazon history just to find out the title.
For real? You remove stuff from your Amazon history? I didn't know that you could do that.
posted by grouse at 2:43 PM on February 18, 2011 [2 favorites]
For real? You remove stuff from your Amazon history? I didn't know that you could do that.
posted by grouse at 2:43 PM on February 18, 2011 [2 favorites]
cmgonzalez writes "Could we at least ask people to post the titles of books and things they're suggesting before their link?"
Also when posting links to imdb.
posted by Mitheral at 3:40 PM on February 18, 2011 [2 favorites]
Also when posting links to imdb.
posted by Mitheral at 3:40 PM on February 18, 2011 [2 favorites]
I'm amazed that people write links to Amazon without including the name of the book in the link text. What do they do, just say "You should read this" where "this" is an Amazon link?
posted by dfan at 4:23 PM on February 18, 2011
posted by dfan at 4:23 PM on February 18, 2011
Yeah, they do that sometimes dfan. This is something we can quantify thanks to cortex! A while back he analyzed a bunch of Amazon links in Ask comments. His results file includes the text that people used to link to the site.
Based on that file, it looks like people are good about using the title in the link text most of the time. It'd be interesting to get a percentage somehow.
posted by pb (staff) at 4:29 PM on February 18, 2011 [1 favorite]
Based on that file, it looks like people are good about using the title in the link text most of the time. It'd be interesting to get a percentage somehow.
posted by pb (staff) at 4:29 PM on February 18, 2011 [1 favorite]
It's almost as bad as making a topical joke reference by linking an IMDB page which URL has no reference to the title so you actually have to click a blind link before you get to find out if you are marginally amused, like this.
posted by Babblesort at 4:30 PM on February 18, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Babblesort at 4:30 PM on February 18, 2011 [1 favorite]
Could we at least ask people to post the titles of books and things they're suggesting before their link?
This is not a linking-to-amazon problem, this is a making-links-at-all-ever problem that's just particularly conspicuous in the cases where the links lack descriptive keywords in the url string. People don't always think about it, some folks less than others on average. As soon as my magic wand arrives, I'll get right on that.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:06 PM on February 18, 2011 [1 favorite]
This is not a linking-to-amazon problem, this is a making-links-at-all-ever problem that's just particularly conspicuous in the cases where the links lack descriptive keywords in the url string. People don't always think about it, some folks less than others on average. As soon as my magic wand arrives, I'll get right on that.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:06 PM on February 18, 2011 [1 favorite]
Isn't it just personal responsibility for everyone to remember to include the book/movie title in their link?
posted by CathyG at 9:23 PM on February 18, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by CathyG at 9:23 PM on February 18, 2011 [1 favorite]
Wasn't implying it was related. It was more of a secondary suggestion. The thread reminded me of seeing multiple "you should read this book" links, especially in AskMe.
posted by cmgonzalez at 9:42 PM on February 18, 2011
posted by cmgonzalez at 9:42 PM on February 18, 2011
Yeah, social engineering the (non)issue would be the ideal way to go, and the result file was really interesting to see. The 3700 "this" is mainly what I am talking about, but it looks like it might be easier to just make all links default to the Feeling Good workbook! Is that the most linked item on ask? Amazing file. Thanks for taking a look into it anyhow guys.
posted by Iteki at 1:05 AM on February 19, 2011
posted by Iteki at 1:05 AM on February 19, 2011
I am terrible about that and will endevour to do better in the future. sometimes brevity is not the soul of wit after all
posted by Redhush at 6:38 AM on February 19, 2011
posted by Redhush at 6:38 AM on February 19, 2011
A few minutes of greping later... cortex's amazon links file has 121,260 lines with 49,305 links. Of those links, 1,067 link with "this" by itself. 2,176 link with "this" as the starting word such as "this here", "this one", or "this book". 303 link with "here". 111 link with "here's [x]". Add those up and you get 2,590 links with easily-verified unhelpful link text.
[drumroll] Unless my math is off that means about 5.25% of all Amazon links at Ask use unhelpful link text. Much higher than I thought it'd be.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:52 AM on February 19, 2011
[drumroll] Unless my math is off that means about 5.25% of all Amazon links at Ask use unhelpful link text. Much higher than I thought it'd be.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:52 AM on February 19, 2011
Babblesort, there is a Firefox extension that displays the title and other stuff while hovering over a link to IMDB.
I really wish there was one for Amazon links.
posted by Penks at 11:47 AM on February 19, 2011 [1 favorite]
I really wish there was one for Amazon links.
posted by Penks at 11:47 AM on February 19, 2011 [1 favorite]
My other unfavorite mystery meat are YouTube links. GRAR, etc.
posted by hattifattener at 11:26 PM on February 19, 2011
posted by hattifattener at 11:26 PM on February 19, 2011
Yeah, they do that sometimes dfan.
Indeed. I just noticed it in this post and my interest level dropped around 50%.
posted by dfan at 2:13 PM on February 21, 2011
Indeed. I just noticed it in this post and my interest level dropped around 50%.
posted by dfan at 2:13 PM on February 21, 2011
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:50 PM on February 18, 2011