

Zen Cart social bookmarking

Zen Cart Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking is a Zen Cart™ mod which allows you to allow your customers to easily add your pages to popular social networking and shopping sites such as wists and del.icio.us.


Relevance: Zen Cart™ 1.3.0 - 1.3.9, 1.5.x

Current Version: 1.4

Support Thread: Social Bookmarking Support Thread

Cost: Free, but donation appreciated

Location: Zen Cart Plugins, under Marketing Tools

Download: Social Bookmarking in Zen Cart Plugins


This mod allows you to add submission buttons for four popular social bookmarking/social shopping websites to your pages. The link anchor text is made up of the product name and your shop name, and the link has the zenid removed for safety. Following the pattern of this modification, it's easy to add other social bookmarking sites as well.

You may also optionally include a link to a tool called The Socializer which automatically creates links to dozens more social networking/bookmarking/shopping sites. This link is turned on by default; instructions for turning it off are in the installation notes below.

This is what the final result will look like:

Zen Cart Social Bookmarking Links

The [More ...] link is the link to the Socializer. Here's an example of the sort of page that the Socializer will take you to if you click on [More ...].

Alternately, you may use AddThis.com's bookmarking service, which will give you a link that looks like this:

Zen Cart AddThis button

The button is the link to AddThis.com. Here's an example of the sort of page that you will go to if you click on the button.

A lot of people use AddThis.com - you can see a list here. You'll see my name at the bottom as one of the first developers to integrate AddThis with a third party system.

Installation Instructions:

  1. Backup everything! Try this in a test environment prior to installing on a live shop.
  3. Customize the file tpl_product_info_display.php with the lines
    <!-- bof social bookmarking -->
            $current_page_base,'templates'). '/tpl_social.php'); 
    <!-- eof social bookmarking -->
  4. If you are running Chemo's SEO URLs, edit tpl_social.php, and change
       // define('CHEMO_URLS', '1');
       define('CHEMO_URLS', '1');
    (i.e. uncomment the line) This *only* applies to Chemo's SEO URLs; Ultimate SEO URLs will work fine with no changes.
  5. Decide which of the bookmarking user interfaces you would like to use. Your options are:
    • a row of four images
    • a text link to the Socializer
    • a graphical link to AddThis.
    All of these are ON by default; you will want to turn some of them off. Edit the file includes/languages/english/extra_definitions/social_defines.php to do this. My recommendation is either using the four images and the Socializer link or the AddThis link, but it's your choice.
  6. You're done! Try bookmarking a site (assuming you have an account on a social bookmark site; if not, create one!)
The Socializer allows your users to bookmark to more sites, but it is advertiser supported content. Read more about it at Socializer Home Page.

AddThis also allows your users to bookmark more sites. Read more about it at AddThis Home Page.

Major Versions

  • 1.5 04/01/2008 - Simplification; just uses add this. You may use the dropdown link optionally.
  • 1.4 01/06/2007 - Adds an optional link to addthis.com's bookmarking service. Now any (or all) of the links may be used at your discretion.
  • 1.3 12/23/2006 - Links open in new windows; added code to permit the addition of social bookmarking to the main page.
  • 1.2 10/20/2006 - Correct generated URL so that it works for all servers; some servers choked on the old url.
  • 1.1 10/16/2006 - Adds an optional link to Socializer, which generates links to a variety of social sites, but is ad supported. Link opens in a new window. Fixes for Chemo URLs also.
  • 1.0 09/27/2006 - First Release


Q: Why can't I just paste the bookmarking code from AddThis.com into my page? Why do I need this mod?
A: There are a few things you get from using this mod instead of using the AddThis bookmark button code directly:
  • The AddThis code uses JavaScript; this mod does not depend. Many users run with Javascript off (check your server logs for percentages), and using the AddThis code directly would not work for them.
  • This mod protects you from defects in other mods which expose your zenid on the browser address bar. This is a particular problem in SEO-type mods.
  • This mod creates a smaller, more friendly page title for bookmarking.
Q: I'd like to use the statistical tracking features of AddThis. How do I do that?
A: The AddThis statistical tracking feature is very powerful; it allows you to easily monitor what people are bookmarking. Adding it to your Zen Cart just requires a small amount of customization. You will need to create an AddThis account. Then create a button with statistics. Look at the code in the code window, and you'll see something like

<a href="javascript: location.href='http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?

The pub= statement (and the trailing ampersand) is what you'll need. Edit tpl_social.php, and go to the line that starts with
echo '<a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?url=
change this to
echo '<a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?pub=your-addthis-login&amp;url=

Q: Hey, I just found this new social bookmarking aggregator - would you please add it to the Social Bookmarking Contribution?
A: Let me know about it and I'll do my best.


New Files
./bm_images  (directory of image files)

Modified Files
includes/templates/<your template>/templates/tpl_product_info_display.php