[windsorlass]

Hi I am experiencing SKYPE numbers appearing on my site and on popshop pages. These numbers are saying to call to save money and to call the company direct. This will mean that I am displaying them and losing commission as they are not clicking the link. On my main web site page I have placed a link for 1800 flowers which should direct the site visitor to a page on my site but the link will now only go to SKYPE. How can Skype hijack my own site links that I have typed and placed myself? How can I stop this? Additionally I updated wedding pages today and House of Brides links (which I appreciate is not with Linkshare but had to decide which company to place this request on the forum) has these 1800 numbers on all their products but I cannot see them on the Popshops page to see where to delete them. HELP. Thank you.

[teezone]

Are you sure it's not your own browser that has been hijacked..? It's easier for your own computer to get infected than a website.

Can you test your website on another computer?

[Convergence]

This should get you going in the right direction:

How do I stop skype highlighting numbers in intern... - Skype Support Network

However, it will do NOTHING for the millions of shoppers who have Skype installed on their machines...

[teezone]

Wow, I didn't know Skype was doing do that!

How annoying.. and thanks for sharing.

[windsorlass]

Hi

Popshops came back almost immediately with a short term solution to remove these links from appearing on my pages but it seems that they are included in the Merchant feed over which they have no control. I have no problem with SKYPE themselves but my income is from my website and if these clickable links appear without any request or permission by me on my site and they direct shoppers to themselves that is not reasonable or fair. Additionally it is stopping the web site visitor from actually visiting my page on which I have numerous choices, information and other offers so it is not being fair to them either. I will check my site on another computer on the IE browser thank you Teezone for the suggestion. I am concerned though that this is something that has been initiated by Microsoft since their purchase of SKYPE. Thanks.

[teezone]

So the merchant is actually including text in their datafeed that says to call to save money - call the company direct??

I'm not an affiliate of 1800 flowers, but if this is the case, they should be held accountable.

[Convergence]

All it takes is for the Skype plugins and/or toolbar to recognize a formatted phone number and it will highlight that number.

And yes, have seen merchant feeds / product descriptions with their name and phone number in them...

[teezone]

The OP mentioned the link indicated to "call to save money and to call the company direct". I interpreted that to be text IN the datafeed appended to the phone number (which I know would be highlighted by the Skype add-in).

Unless it's just some text overlay indicating that calling via Skype will save money...

[Convergence]

Originally Posted by teezone

The OP mentioned the link indicated to "call to save money and to call the company direct". I interpreted that to be text IN the datafeed appended to the phone number (which I know would be highlighted by the Skype add-in).

Unless it's just some text overlay indicating that calling via Skype will save money...

I have never seen the "Call to save money" as part of the highlighting - suspect it's in the merchant feed.

Did find some possible solutions to prevent your visitors with Skype from seeing the phone number as highlighted. Will hopefully test this coming week. One I found interesting was a meta tag (opening < and closing > brackets removed) that is supposed to be for IE.

 meta name="SKYPE_TOOLBAR" content="SKYPE_TOOLBAR_PARSER_COMPATIBLE" /

Source: How To Prevent Skype from Highlighting Phone Numbers « Boutros AbiChedid

[Convergence]

Originally Posted by windsorlass

I am concerned though that this is something that has been initiated by Microsoft since their purchase of SKYPE.

LONG before MS bought Skype. However, they did have a version or two that came out after the MS purchase that did not give you an option to install/not install the highlighting feature - that, I believe is the doing of MS...

[OTProf]

Dang. This business gets harder by the minute.

[Chuck Hamrick]

On my main web site page I have placed a link for 1800 flowers which should direct the site visitor to a page on my site but the link will now only go to SKYPE.

Can someone verify that the 1-800-FLOWERS.COM feed contains 800 number and possible SKYPE redirects?

[Convergence]

I could not find a "phone number" in their STANDARD text links, just their website name "1800flowers.com".

When Skype recognizes a phone number it highlights it, and clicking on the highlighted phone number does not "redirect" to a Skype link, per se - but activates Skype's dialer...

We don't use their datafeed and I can't imagine them putting any other phone number in their text other than 1800Flowers.com...

[windsorlass]

Hi

The 1800 Flowers team have been awesome trying to sort this out. Even to finding a code to insert for the link to stop it from happening but unfortunately my site is within Sitebuilder so I do not have the ability to insert individual codes other than basic HTML for my links. I managed to remove the link to Skype by typing one eight hundred flowers in full. Every other variation I tried did not stop the Skype link appearing. As soon as Skype 'found' and identified it as a phone number they took it over. In other occurrences where the number arose I copied a block into Notepad and replaced them with alpha. If this happens across the site it is going to be very difficult to control especially in data feeds. 1800 Flowers did not have their number in my data feed however House of Brides did. It seems that whenever Skype finds a 1800 number (maybe other versions of this too?), that it is linked with, it alters the link to link to them and a box appears requesting that you either sign up with Skype or access your Skype page. This therefore overrides whatever link you have installed. Thank you for all your replies. Take care and have a great weekend.

[JoyUnltd]

Re: the meta tag listed above does not work with the current version of Skype. Found this post from May 2010. It recommends a jQuery solution, still simple to implement for those who are worried about this.

Note: there may be later fixes, this was just to let folks know that Skype no longer supports this meta tag: meta name="SKYPE_TOOLBAR" content="SKYPE_TOOLBAR_PARSER_COMPATIBLE" /

[upc1977]

The easiest way to prevent Skype from hijacking your site is to use this simple CSS. Check it out:

span.skype_pnh_container {
display:none !important;
}
span.skype_pnh_print_container {
display:inline !important;
}

Just add that to the top of your CSS, and keep working as usual, no hacks needed.

[upc1977]

I wrote about it here too:

Stop hijacking my webpage designs with your button... - Skype Support Network

[windsorlass]

Hi thank you guys for replies.... Have awesome Holidays and Merry Christmas..... Carol

[John Jupp]

Originally Posted by upc1977

The easiest way to prevent Skype from hijacking your site is to use this simple CSS. Check it out:

span.skype_pnh_container {
display:none !important;
}
span.skype_pnh_print_container {
display:inline !important;
}

Just add that to the top of your CSS, and keep working as usual, no hacks needed.

Can this thread be duplicated please Mods to the techies bit as this is an important issue? Skype's new function can be a pain and listing the work arounds will come in handy for those not too skilled in web design to find an instant fix.