price Attribute

To convert a common link to a paid-link, simply place the link price in the price attribute. For example:

<a href="#" price="US$ 0.1">paid-link</a>

Resulting in the following paid-link

All paid-links necessarily contain the price attribute. If a link does not have this attribute, it is not considered a paid-link, but rather a common link.

The link price is always composed of a quantity and a currency.

• The quantity is a number whose decimal separator can be either a comma or a period. In other words, 0.1 and 0,1 both represent 10 cents (this is necessary for internationalization).
• The currency is one of the currencies accepted by iCents.net, and may be represented by either its code or symbol.
   
  The currency code is composed of 3 letters, and is defined by the ISO 4217 standard. For example, USD, AUD and ARS respectively represent the US dollar, the Australian dollar and the Argentinean peso.
   
  The currency symbol is the abbreviation used in the currency's issuing country. For example, US$ represents the US dollar. However, some symbols such as $ are used for more than one currency, such as the Australian dollar and the Argentinean peso, which use the same $. iCents.net does not allow you to use ambiguous symbols that represent more than one currency. In these situations, always use the 3-letter code, as explained above.

While defining the price, you may place the currency first and then the quantity or vice versa. Besides, you may or may not place a space between them. For example:

A paid-link of 10 US dollar cents can be represented in any of the following ways:

    <a href="#" price="US$ 0,10">
    <a href="#" price="US$ 0.10">
    <a href="#" price="US$ 0.1">
    <a href="#" price="0.1US$">
    <a href="#" price=".1US$">
    <a href="#" price="0.1 US$">
    <a href="#" price="USD0.1">
    <a href="#" price="0.1USD">
    <a href="#" price="USD 0.1">
    <a href="#" price="USD.1">
    <a href="#" price="0.1 USD">

A paid-link of 10 Chinese Yuan cents may be represented in any of the following ways:

    <a href="#" price="CNY 0,10">
    <a href="#" price="CNY 0.10">
    <a href="#" price="CNY0,10">
    <a href="#" price="CNY0.10">
    <a href="#" price="0,10CNY">
    <a href="#" price="0.10CNY">
    <a href="#" price=",10CNY">
    <a href="#" price=".10CNY">
    <a href="#" price="CNY,10">
    <a href="#" price="CNY.10">

Automatic Currency Conversion

Regardless of the currency that you place in the paid-link, the Internet user will always see the price converted to their currency of choice. iCents.net converts the amounts in real time. For example, the following links cost 10 cents in different currencies (dollar, Euro and pounds), but iCents.net converts all of them to the same currency when you hover the mouse above them.

<a href="#" price="0.10 USD">paid-link 1</a>
<a href="#" price="0.10 EUR">paid-link 2</a>
<a href="#" price="0.10 GBP">paid-link 3</a>

This is the result:

paid-link 1
paid-link 2
paid-link 3

Free Paid-Link

You can set the price of a paid-link to zero. This procedure creates a free paid-link. Although the 'free paid-link' definition appears to contain an oxymoron, this is only to differentiate it from a regular free link, which also does not cost anything.

The difference between a free paid-link and a regular link is that the displayed price of a free paid-link when the mouse hovers over it is zero. For example:

<a href="#" price="US$ 0">free paid-link</a>

This is the result: free paid-link

Please note that you must also include the currency in the price attribute, even when the price is zero; otherwise the link will show an error.

The goal of the free paid-link is to reaffirm that the access to the referenced content is free of charge while the Internet user is on trial period. Suppose a website provides access to 10 different online games. Each day, one of the games is free and the others cost 50 cents. In this case, you could use a free paid-link to draw attention to the free game, and still maintain a consistent user interface while displaying the prices for all game links.

Attention: when a free paid-link is clicked, there is no payment involved. Then, the unlock attribute has no effect and no content is unlocked.

Paid-Link without a Price

Instead of the paid-link price, you could set price="noprice" to create a paid-link without a price. The paid-link without a price is usually combined with the nopricetext attribute and sometimes with the althref and alttarget attributes.

For example:

<a href="#" price="noprice" nopricetext="leave" althref="info.html">paid-link</a>

Resulting in the following paid-link

Please refer to the session with examples to understand better when to use a paid-link without price.

Interaction with Other Paid-Link Attributes

Interaction of the price and unlock Attributes

When the paid-link is effectively paid by the user, the content indicated by the unlock attribute will be unlocked.

When the paid-link price is zero (i.e. when you have a free paid-link), the link cannot have the unlock attribute, otherwise the link will show an error.

Interaction of the nopricetext and price Attributes

When there is a paid-link without a price (created using the price="noprice" attribute) you must indicate what text should appear when the mouse hovers over the link. In this case, you can use the nopricetext attribute, which can be either nopricetext="renew" or nopricetext="leave".

Interaction of the price, althref and alttarget Attributes

If an Internet user clicks on a paid-link without a price (created with the price="noprice" attribute), then:

• If the link is unlocked, the user will be taken to the page indicated by the href attribute in the window indicated in the target attribute.
• If the link is not unlocked, the user will be taken to the page indicated by the althref attribute in the window indicated by the alttarget attribute.

Interaction of the price and pricetext Attributes

The paid-link text that appears when the mouse hovers above it could be changed using the pricetext attribute, which can be either pricetext="pay" or nopricetext="download".

Troubleshooting

• If you get the "Invalid Link! (wrong price)" error when hovering the mouse over a paid-link, check whether the price is valid. A price is always made up of a (numerical) quantity and a currency. The currency is always a 3 letter code, or a symbol used in the currency's issuing country. Some currency symbols are not allowed because they are used by more than one country. When in doubt, instead of the symbol use the currency code.
• If you get the "Invalid Link! (wrong price)" error when hovering the mouse over a free paid-link (i.e. a paid-link whose price is zero), check whether you specified the currency in the price. All prices must have their quantity and currency, even if the quantity is zero.
• If you get the "Invalid Link! (free link must not have unlock)" error when hovering the mouse over a free paid-link (i.e. a paid-link whose price is zero), check whether the paid-link has the unlock attribute. A free paid-link cannot have this attribute.
• If you get the "Invalid Link! (price too high)" error when hovering the mouse over a paid-link, this is because the link price exceeds (is greater than) the maximum value permitted by iCents.net. iCents.net does not allow paid-links to have high costs. To sell more expensive products, use other more appropriate payment methods (such as your credit card, PayPal, Google Checkout, Amazon and others). Note that no error will be displayed if the paid-link value is less than that allowed by iCents.net. In this situation, the value will be rounded up to reach the minimum value allowed by iCents.net.
• If the paid-link is behaving as if it were a regular link, without showing the price, check for one of the following possibilities:
  1. iCents.net was not initialized on the page. In this case, include the initialization code.
  2. iCents.net was turned off on the page. In this case, remove the cookies, or call the iCents.TurnOn function on the page.
  3. The price attribute is missing or misspelled.