Post Affiliate Pro Cookie Problem

Earlier this year I was doing a very involved project integrating Post Affiliate Pro and Modern Bill when I came across a problem…

Cookies were disappearing.

And if affiliates aren’t making sales… they’re going to move on to a competitor that has the services and the tracking systems in place to monetize that traffic.

Luckily, I’d come across this before when writing my own PHP apps. You see, if you don’t know what you’re doing when you’re setting a cookie, chances are that you’re not going to get your desired end result.

Unless you take necessary steps… most cookies will not work across these three kinds of urls:

• http://yoursite.com
• http://www.yoursite.com
• http://subdomain.yoursite.com

Here’s a 6 minute video that explains this phenomenon and shows you a quick demonstration.

My client was using a subdomain for promotion and their root domain for taking the orders via Modern Bill.

I had to go into the Post Affiliate Pro code, find where the cookie was being set, and rewrite some of the code.

How I Solve This for My Own Post Affiliate Pro Installs

I like to keep things as easy and simple as possible. Hacking the internal code of Post Affiliate Pro has a major drawback in that updating a server with a newer version will overwrite the change… and then you’re back in the same spot, often without realizing what you’ve undone.

So what I like to do is to force the server to serve up only web pages with www in the url. This means I don’t have to tamper with the cookies… they’ll always be set for the correct domain… the only one that’s possible.

It’s very rare that one of my clients sets up their install on a subdomain. So this technique is really handy.

But it requires that your web hosting company run Linux on the server with mod_rewrite turned on. I’ve created a push button tool and step by step video in my members only section for folks that purchase Post Affiliate Pro through my affiliate link:

Affiliate Link for Bonuses

But let me go ahead and show you how to do this. Here’s what you need to add to your .htaccess file:


# force www.
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.yoursite.com$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yoursite.com/$1 [R=301]


Just replace yoursite.com with your actual domain.

A word of warning… backup your site and your existing .htaccess file if you have one. Tinkering with .htaccess is a bit like doing brain surgery on your website. One little goof can have far reaching effects.

That’s A Lot More About Post Affiliate Pro

It seems like more and more I’m doing custom installs for clients that would rather pay me to do it “right” than give them 2 hours worth of information on how I do it.

But if you’re keeping costs down, here’s something you should see.

Click the picture graphic above and you’ll get a larger image of my Post Affiliate Pro members only section where I have over 2 hours of video, 8 downloads, and more.

If you decide to purchase Post Affiliate Pro, you should strongly consider buying through my link:

Use this link to get the bonuses

And then you can send your purchase information to me here:

Post Affiliate Pro Bonuses

After I verify the order you get an email from me with your own login for the members only section where you’ll find the movies tutorials and downloads.