rel-payment

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Authors

Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen

Joshua Kinberg

The Problem

Prior Art

Anil Dash's proposal in 2002 to use XHTML <link> element to define payment URLs:

payment LINK tags

There are already a lot of defined (if not quite standardized) possible values for the LINK element in XHTML. We're using them for RSS Auto-Discovery and, of course, for stylesheets already. But what about something like: <link rel="appendix" type="text/html" title="payment" href="URL of Wishlist or Paypal Page" />

A standardized way of linking to the page where you pay for your patronage of a site. Granted, calling the payment page an "Apppendix" of the site you're visiting is fudging things a bit. Maybe there's a more elegant way?

Examples from the wild

Amazon Associates

Product with image

This is the code generated by Amazon for a single product endorsement with photo. Everything is generated automatically. The form can be replaced with another regular HTML link.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
  <body>
  <table cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width=120 height=240 bgColor=#000000 border=0>
   <tr>
     <td>
       <table cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=118 height=238 align=center bgColor=#ffffff border=0>
         <tr>
           <td>
             <table width=100%  height=238 border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0>
               <tr align=center>
                 <td>
                   <a href=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00022AH6I/solitudedk-20?creative=327641&camp=14573&link_code=as1 target=_blank><img src=http://rcm-images.amazon.com/images/P/B00022AH6I.01._SCTZZZZZZZ_.jpg vspace=3 border=0></a>
                 </td>
               </tr>
               <tr>
                 <td vAlign=center height=15%><center>
                   <a href=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00022AH6I/solitudedk-20?creative=327641&camp=14573&link_code=as1 target=_blank><font face=Arial color=#0000ff size=1>Kodak EasyShare DX7440 4MP Digital C...</font></a>
                 </td>
               </tr>
               <tr height=15%>
                 <td>
                   <center>
                   <font face=Arial color=#000000 size=-2>Kodak Digital </font>
                   </center>
                 </td>
               </tr>
               <tr>
                <td height=15%>
                   <center><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=solitudedk-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&link_code=am1&path=tg/stores/offering/list/-/B00022AH6I/all/ASIN/B00022AH6I&camp=14573&creative=327641" target=_blank><font face=Arial color=#0000ff size=1>Best Price <font face=Arial color=#990000 size=1>$157.70</font></font></a></center>
                 </td>
               </tr>
               <tr height=15%>
                 <td>
                   <center><font face=Arial color=#000000 size=1>or Buy New <font color=#990000></font></font></center>
                 </td>
               </tr>
               <tr>
                 <td height=15%><center>
                   <table>
                   <form method="GET" action="http://www.amazon.com/gp/aws/cart/add.html" target="_blank">
                   <tr>
                   <td>
                   <input type="hidden" name="SubscriptionId" value="D68HUNXKLHS4J" />
                   <input type="hidden" name="AssociateTag" value="solitudedk-20" />
                   <input type="hidden" name="ASIN.1" value="B00022AH6I" />
                   <input type="hidden" name="Quantity.1" value="1" />
                   <input type="hidden" name="linkCode" value="as1" />
                   <input type="image"  name="submit.add" value="Buy from Amazon.com" border="0" alt="Buy from Amazon.com" src="http://rcm-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/buttons/buy-from-tan.gif" />
                   </center>
                   </td>
                   </tr>
                   </form>
                   </table>
                 </center></td>
               </tr>
               <tr>
                 <td height=5% align=absbottom>
                   <center><a href=http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm/privacy-policy.html?o=1 target=_blank>
               <font face=Arial color=#a1a1a1 size=1>Privacy Information</font></a></center>
                 </td>
               </tr>
             </table>
           </td>
         </tr>
       </table>
     </td>
   </tr>
 </table>
   </body>
  </html> 

Text links

This is the code for a text link to a product category. The visible link text is chosen by the user.

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&camp=1789&
  tag=solitudedk-20&creative=9325&path=tg/browse/-/1">
  Get Photography Books at Amazon
</a>
<img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=solitudedk-20&l=ur2&o=1" 
  width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; 
  margin:0px !important;" />

Banners

The following is the code generated by Amazon for generic Amazone banners. Note use of imagemap to create "privacy policy link".

<html>
  <body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0>
    <table width=468 height=60 border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0>
      <tr valign=middle align=center>
        <td>
          <MAP NAME='boxmap'><AREA SHAPE='RECT' COORDS='379, 50, 469, 61' 
            HREF=http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm/privacy-policy.html?o=1 target=_top>
            <AREA COORDS='0,0,10000,10000' HREF=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?
              tag=solitudedk-20&creative=333489&camp=15553&link_code=ez&path=
              /tg/browse/-/171280 target=_top>
          </MAP>
          <img src=http://rcm-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/
            associates/2005/served-banners/us_banner_imag_468x60.gif 
            width='468' height='60' border='0' usemap='#boxmap'>
        </td>
      </tr>
    </table>
  </body>
</html> 

Search Boxes

Amazon offers search boxes:

<form action="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search">
<table class="normal" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
  <tr>
    <td style="background-color:#fff;">
      <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" align="top" 
        height="90" width="120" style="border: 1px solid #000000 !important;">
        <tr>
          <td style="background-color:#fff;" height="20" valign="bottom" align="center">
            <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; 
            font-size:10px !important; font-weight:bold !important;">Search Now:</span>
          </td>
          <td style="background-color:#fff;"> </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td style="background-color:#fff;" align="center" height="30" valign="top">
            <input type="text" name="keyword" size="10" value="" />
          </td>
          <td style="background-color:#fff;" height="20" valign="top" align="left">

            <input type="hidden" name="mode" value="blended" /> 
            <input type="hidden" name="tag" value="solitudedk-20" /> 
            <input type="image" border="0" value="Go" name="Submit" 
              src="http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/associates/build-links/
              ap-search-go-btn.gif" alt="[ Go ]" align="absmiddle" /> 
          </td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td colspan="2" style="background-color:#000;" height="40">
           <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/solitudedk-20">
            <img src="http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/associates/build-links/
            searchbox-logo-126x32.gif" height="36" border="0" width="126" 
            alt="Amazon Logo" /></a></td>
        </tr>
      </table>
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>
</form>

Practical examples of rel="payment"

Blog entry containing video interview with founders of a theater group. rel="payment" link points to the theater group's fundraising page where the reader is encourage to donate via PayPal.

Blog entry containing home video that uses music by a popular recording artist. rel="payment" link encourages reader to purchase the artist's CD at Amazon (could have used Amazon affilliate link as noted above).

Blog entry containing audio segment from an NPR interview. rel="payment" link encourages the reader to support NPR by purchasing something from the NPR Online Shop.