How can I stop showing URLs at bottom of browser?

[Michel Z.]

I would like to stop showing URLs at bottom of browser in following cases:

1. When someone moves with mouse to images on my site to click, I don't want to show at bottom of browser my 'affiliate' URL! How can I do that?

2. When visitors coming to my site, I also don't want to show URLs at bottom of browser when my site is downloading!

How can I do above mentioned? Which code do I need to add?

Many thanks!

[Masetek]

<A href="jmouse.htm" onMouseover="window.status='SOMETEXTHERE'; return true"
onMouseout="window.status=' '; return true">Place your mouse here!</A>

Replace "SOMETEXTHERE" with a good looking URL. That should do the trick :)

[KLB]

You should be aware that most current browsers are now disabling the "window.status" trick and are preventing websites from hiding or disguising the URL in the status bar for security and phishing reasons.

[Masetek]

I astually wasn't aware of that. I noticed in FF that if a site used window.status the status bar displayed nothing.

In that case you could use an outgoing links script or even better use mod_rewrite to link to something like yoursite.com/link/blah.html and use a php script to redirect it.

[Chris]

I haven't noticed it blocked.

[Vinnie]

I haven't noticed it blocked.
Firefox has an option in its preferences to disable changing the status bar. I don't think it's on by default though.

Opera also has weird status bar issues, but it's more about the timing of the mouseover/mouseout events than a conscious blocking effort.

[platinum]

you can always link out via a seperate script, ie your link may just be redirect.php?url=1
which would then head them off in the right direction without having a huge messy URL and/or putting them off clicking. :)

[Masetek]

you can always link out via a seperate script, ie your link may just be redirect.php?url=1
which would then head them off in the right direction without having a huge messy URL and/or putting them off clicking. :)

So what I said :p

Nice to see someone here from Adelaide!

[platinum]

haha your'e right, sorry, it was late, and i wasn't reading closely enough. :p

[Dan Grossman]

The other advantage to using a separate script that redirects to the actual destination of your outbound links instead of linking directly is that you can then ban spiders from reaching that URL. That lets you precisely control the outbound pagerank from your pages.

[Masetek]

Also...

You can track who's clicking what links where and optimise your site accordingly.