Setting your referrer address is quick and easy. It can also be very powerful. See below for common questions that will help you understand how to use the referrer URL field.
What is a referrer URL?
Your referrer URL is the web address or URL that has permission to embed project content. Examples of project content will include but are not limited to questions, responses, and video clips – each of these is able to be placed directly into your website using embed codes provided by Qualvu. With the referrer URL set you can be certain only you and the website(s) you specify in the referrer URL are allowed to embed Qualvu content.
Why would I set the referrer URL?
There may be several reasons why you would want to set the referrer URL, but perhaps two of the most important reasons will be the following:
1. To prevent others from hijacking your videos and embedding them into their sites.
Though you may in fact want people to embed your videos into their sites to generate greater web penetration, if the video contains proprietary information or content you do not want just anyone to be able to use for their own purposes, setting the referrer URL will prevent this.
2. To control access even within your own site.
Because the referrer URL you specify will match subdomains (e.g., the ‘www’,’mail’, or any other characters followed by a period before ‘yoursite.com’) and specific file locations (e.g., the ‘/account/projects’ part of ‘www.qualvu.com/account/projects’), setting either of these will ensure your videos do not end up on pages of your site you do not want them.
What happens when a site not specified by the referrer URL embeds a video?
Below is an example of what an individual will see if they choose to embed a video they do not have permission to embed into their site.
Can multiple referrer URLs be specified?
Yes, separate your referrer URLs by a comma, ‘,’. Each URL specified will have permission to embed videos and will follow the same rules as if only one URL were specified.
How do I set the referrer URL? What specifically does it check?
The referrer URL checks several components of the URL entered:
Top Level Domain:
The top level domain would be something similar to ‘yoursite.com’. Regardless of whether any other information is present, this is the first component of the embedding site’s address that is checked. For Qualvu, we would enter ‘qualvu.com’ and this would give permission to sites like ‘www.qualvu.com’, ‘mail.qualvu.com’, ‘www.qualvu.com/account/projects’, ‘qualvu.com/account/projects’, ‘www.qualvu.com/help’, etc…
Subdomains:
Subdomains are anything that is between ‘http://’ and your top level domain, ‘yoursite.com’. In ‘www.qualvu.com’ the subdomain is ‘www’, and in ‘mail.qualvu.com’ the subdomain is ‘mail’. If ‘www.qualvu.com’ is specified, then ‘mail.qualvu.com’ would not have permission to embed videos from the project and neither would ‘qualvu.com’ unless the ‘www’ was specified before it. The same is true if ‘mail.qualvu.com’ were specified, ‘www.qualvu.com’ would not have permission to access videos from the project. In the case of sites with multiple subdomains such as ‘joeuser.mail.qualvu.com’, the referrer URL that is entered will be checked from right to left. This means that if ‘mail.qualvu.com’ is entered in the referrer URL, then ‘joeuser.mail.qualvu.com’ would have permission.
File Location:
Lastly and somewhat separately, any file locations specified after the top level domain will be checked. Specifically anything coming after the ‘/’ that directly follows ‘yoursite.com’. Everything to the left of the ‘/’ will follow the rules stated above for top level domains and subdomains. For everything to the right of the ‘/’, it will be matched exactly from left to right similar to checking subdomains. So if ‘qualvu.com/accounts/’ was entered then ‘www.qualvu.com/accounts/index.html’, ‘www.qualvu.com/accounts/projects’, etc.. would have permission. If ‘qualvu.com/accounts/projects’ was entered then ‘www.qualvu.com/accounts/projects/<any additional folders and/or files>’ would have permission. A good example of a reason you may wish to use this would be in forums to allow discussion of video that has been posted on your site. You may wish to specify that ‘www.yoursite.com/forums/’ only be allowed permission so that videos can only be embedded for the sake of discussion, and not used in other locations on your site.
Domain Exact Match:
There may be times where you will want to give permission to ‘mail.qualvu.com’ but not ‘joeuser.mail.qualvu.com’. With the method of specifying above, you would not be able to prevent this because the referrer URL is checked from right to left. Should you desire an exact match like this, simply precede the referrer URL with ‘http://’. This will ensure that when ‘http://mail.qualvu.com’ is entered, only ‘http://mail.qualvu.com’ has permission and ‘joeuser.mail.qualvu.com’ does not. This also applies if you do not wish to allow subdomains at all for example by entering ‘http://qualvu.com’. In this case, any ‘subdomain.qualvu.com’ would not have permission including ‘www.qualvu.com’.
File Location Exact Match:
Because the file location is checked from left to right, similar to the subdomains being checked from right to left, you can specify an exact match by using the ‘#’ character at the end of your referrer URL. If you only wanted to allow embedding on the one page you have chosen to embed your videos on , for example ‘yoursite.com/projects/myanalysis.html’, you could place the ‘#’ character at the end of your referrer URL, ‘yoursite.com/projects/myanalysis.html#’. This would require that the embedding site file location be exactly the site and file location specified in the referrer URL. Keep in mind this would place any restrictions on an exact match for your subdomain as using the ‘#’ only requires an exact match for everything between the first ‘/’ after ‘yoursite.com’ and the ‘#’. In this example this would be ‘projects/myanalysis.html’.
Complete Exact Match:
To ensure a complete exact match, combine ‘http://’ at the beginning with ‘#’ at the end. This requires that everything between ‘http://’ and ‘#’ match the embedding site’s address exactly.
If you have any further questions concerning the restrictions and features of the referrer URL, please contact support@qualvu.com.