How to Enable Comment Processing in SEO Smart Links Pro

Note: This feature is back in SEO Smart Links Pro 1.8.1; so if you want comment processing, just upgrade and enable the option. For historical interest…

Back when I did my [intlink id=”559″ type=”post”]review of Automatic Keyword Affiliate Link Plugins[/intlink], my preferred choice SEO Smart Links Pro supported keyword matching in comments. So if one of my blog commenters mentioned HostGator say, that keyword would automatically turn into an affiliate link.

I liked this feature.

Unfortunately it led to so many support requests that the plugin author removed it. Apparently on blogs with large numbers of comments, the extra processing time is too much for many servers. So if you have a blog with thousands of comments, just live and let live. But if you only have a few, and really want this feature, and promise not to hassle the plugin author about it… Here’s how to re-enable comment processing in SEO Smart Links Pro version 1.6.3:

Edit the file seo-smart-links-pro.php in a text editor like TextPad.

Uncomment this code in function SEOLinksPro:

/*if ($options['comment'])
add_filter('comment_text', array(
&$this,
'SEOLinks_the_content_filter'
), 200);*/

Changing it to:

if ($options['comment'])
add_filter('comment_text', array(
&$this,
'SEOLinks_the_content_filter'
), 200);

In function handle_options, you need to insert code to set the comment option. Look for this code:

<p>Check to enable UTF-8 support if your site uses non-english characters. Also helps with matching non-letter characters.</p>
<input type="checkbox" name="utfsupport" $utfsupport /><label for="utfsupprt"> Enable UTF-8 support</label> <br>
<br>

And immediately after it, add:

<p>Process Comments.</p>
<input type="checkbox" name="comment" $comment /><label for="comment"> Process comments</label> <br>
<br>

Now go to the SEO Smart Links Pro Options screen, and select the option to Process Comments. Save options… and you’re done!