Integration¶
Integration is the process of attaching an Adspect stream to your traffic flow, be it for active filtering or passive statistics collection. You will need a server (hosting) with PHP 5.6+ language support and enabled php-curl and php-json PHP extensions.
After creating a stream you will be immediately brought to the integration page. This page may also be accessed using the “Code” button next to each stream’s name in the list of streams.
Adspect supports three types of integration that differ in technical details and use cases:
- Forward PHP integration via a standalone
index.php
file - Reverse PHP integration via including a
filter.php
file - JavaScript integration via
<script>
HTML tag embedding using a remoteajax.php
file
All three integration types employ a special PHP file that is tied to a particular stream in the system. This file communicates with Adspect backend servers in real time and performs traffic filtering, acting as a client in the client-server architecture of Adspect. As per Adspect development roadmap, these files will eventually be replaced with a full-featured PHP SDK in future.
Adspect PHP files do not contain stream settings. You may change any stream settings at any time, and these changes will be picked up on the fly, i.e. you do not need to replace our PHP files after making changes.
PHP Integration¶
PHP integration is the most secure type of integration. We strongly advise to use this integration type everywhere.
PHP integration comes in two flavors: forward and reverse. The only difference between them is how our PHP files are wired with your locally hosted landing pages, i.e. which file receives incoming traffic. Both flavors are equally secure otherwise. Choose whichever is more convenient for you.
Forward PHP Integration¶
Forward PHP integration is the most common type of integration. If you don’t know which integration type to choose, then go with forward PHP integration.
In forward PHP integration filtering is done by a special index.php
file that you place in your landing page directory
or elsewhere accessible via HTTP. This file acts as an entry point for web traffic and is wired to our servers that
process clicks and make decisions.
Traffic flow chart
After uploading the index.php
file to your hosting its URL will be the cloaked URL suitable for use in advertising campaigns.
Several copies of the same index.php
file may be used for protecting several offers or landing pages without interfering
with each other.
Reverse PHP Integration¶
There’s also a slightly different reverse PHP integration that uses a filter.php
file which is included into your
PHP page file (normally your safe page) via a single line of PHP code. Traffic lands directly on this page, our code
in the filter.php
file inspects it and chooses either to keep the visitor on the page or display a different one.
Traffic flow chart
In order to perform reverse PHP integration you first need to download the filter.php
file on the Reverse PHP Integration
tab and put it into the folder of your site or landing page. Several copies of the same filter.php
file may be used for
protecting several sites or landing pages without interfering with each other.
Then add the following code as the first line of your site or landing page index file (usually named index.php
)
above all other code:
<?php require __DIR__ . '/filter.php' ?>
If your site is written in pure HTML, then you may safely change the extension of your file from .html
to .php
before adding our line of code to it.
If you added the code into your safe page, then specify “No action” for a safe page action in stream settings. Adspect will not take any action, leaving the visitor on their current page which is the safe page. Likewise, if you added the code into your money page, then specify “No action” for your money page in settings.
Once set up, you then simply direct traffic to the page you added the code into.
WordPress and Other CMS¶
Reverse PHP integration is useful for integrating Adspect into sites based on WordPress or similar CMS (content management systems.)
WordPress has a file named index.php
in its root folder.
That is the file where you should add that single line of PHP code discussed above. Place the filter.php
file into the same folder.
Most other PHP-based CMS software also has such index.php
entryway files in their root folders.
Please note: WordPress updates will overwrite this index.php
file, thereby removing our integration code!
If your WordPress-based stream suddenly stopped registering clicks in Adspect reporting, then the likely cause
is recent WordPress update, and you should redo integration.
Getting Scan Status¶
When transferring control to other PHP files or doing reverse PHP integration into them, you may obtain
scan status information about each click using the $_adspect
global PHP variable. It contains an associative
array of the following structure:
array (
'cid' => 'fd808d23604d84fbc5e81d7b954c4f9a',
'ok' => true,
'js' => false,
'action' => 'local',
'target' => 'page.php?utm_campaign=test',
)
The fields are:
- cid – unique Adspect internal click ID, string (will be the same for both stages of click processing;)
- ok – whether the click was determined legitimate, boolean;
- js – whether JS fingerprinting code must be served, boolean (will always be
false
since JS fingerprinting happens before transfer of control to the user’s code); - action – action performed for the visitor, string (will normally be either
local
ornoop
); - target – target for the action performed (URL, file path, code), string.
JavaScript integration¶
JavaScript integration is meant to be used with third party services like Shopify, Blogspot, or Tilda, where you cannot upload custom PHP files to do PHP integration. Traffic flow is much like in reverse PHP integration: visitors come to the safe page first, then legitimate ones are displayed the money page whereas moderators and bots are left where they are.
Traffic flow chart
You will also need to download a PHP file called ajax.php
and host it somewhere, but its final location does not
matter as it will be linked into the safe page using a <script>
HTML tag.
It is important to link ajax.php
via HTTPS if the website you are integrating Adspect into also uses HTTPS (which is
almost always the case.) Trying to link ajax.php
to an HTTPS site via plain HTTP will result in
mixed content error in most modern browsers,
and cloaking will not work.
Like PHP integration, JavaScript integration also supports several modes of operation:
- In JavaScript redirect mode, legitimate visitors as determined by our filters will be directed to the money page
via JavaScript redirect using the
location.replace()
method, i.e. the URL in the address bar will change. This is the usual mode. If you don’t know what to choose, then go with JavaScript redirect. - In iframe overlay mode, legitimate visitors will be shown the money page via an iframe overlay without redirecting them anywhere, i.e. the money page iframe will be placed over the safe page. Please note that websites may forbid displaying their content inside an iframe by using the X-Frame-Options response header.
- In passive mode our statistics will be updated, but no further action will be taken–the visitor will remain on the page. This mode is like Google Analytics–perfect for collecting passive insights and blacklists of bot-ridden sources in cases that do not require cloaking.
Several copies of the same ajax.php
file may be used for protecting several pages without interfering with each other
except for shared statistics.
Please note that safe page setting is ignored in JavaScript integration because visitors initially land on the safe page,
which is the page that our <script>
tag is placed on.
Switching Streams¶
Each stream has its own index.php
, filter.php
, and ajax.php
files wired to it that have the stream ID encoded inside.
However, you may override that encoded stream ID and send a click to a different stream by putting the destination
full stream ID into the __sid
URL parameter, e.g:
https://example.com/index.php?__sid=1ea85c7c-b977-6804-8e69-00162501c2b4
You may find stream ID next to its name in the streams list.
If you need use a different parameter name instead of __sid
, then open Adspect PHP file in a text editor and replace
the __sid
string with the desired name (e.g. utm_campaign
.)
Debugging¶
The most often observed error is 500 Internal Server Error, which is usually caused by either of the following misconfigurations:
- File specified for zero redirect displaying of money/safe page could not be found;
- Your PHP installation does not have cURL support–you need to install the
php-curl
package.
All Adspect PHP files support debug mode. If enabled, any server-side errors will be displayed directly in browser window. In order to enable debug mode you need to open our PHP file in a text editor, find the following piece of code in the beginning of the file:
<?php
defined('ADSPECT_DEBUG') or define('ADSPECT_DEBUG', 0);
and replace 0
with 1
in it:
<?php
defined('ADSPECT_DEBUG') or define('ADSPECT_DEBUG', 1);
If your PHP integration does not work, e.g. you observe an HTTP 500 error, then you will see error details in
debug mode. When debugging JavaScript integration, you should navigate directly to the URL of the ajax.php
file.
If you don’t know how to fix a particular error, then please contact us in Telegram about it.
Do not forget to disable debug mode after all errors are fixed.