Intro:
For the last few years i coded many Facebook applications to help Facebook users posting GIF on their Facebook wall. The idea of creating such Apps is to get traffic to website or spreading Ads. as always Facebook was going behind each hack or trick and patch it. But later on, Facebook supported GIF in posts .
Facebook & GIF:
One of Facebook updates was to support GIF in posts, the support was for GIPHY.COM as the website is the largest GIF database (users can share GIF from any website).
Facebook allows users to post GIF and once the GIF image clicked it will start playing. But clicking on the website name as this picture shows :
it will be redirects to the website which hosting the GIF image.
The Idea:
Last night i was thinking on how to use Facebook GIF images to get traffic (to redirect users to my website instead of GIPHY.COM), after i noticed that my page's GIF posts have been shared more than other posts, [This because most users wont like to share other users or pages posts, instead many of them prefer to download the post content (video or image) and upload it again on their wall. ]
When user shares GIF post, Facebook asks him to keep the original post or to make new one because Facebook treats GIF as external links not as uploaded image.
That so users share this kind of posts (links) cause they are able to post them under their names.
The Hack:
Few minutes coding i was able to let Facebook shows external GIF in my post and once website name clicked it redirects to my domain.
First i traced Facebook composer system and how website Meta Tags is parsed in each post.
Second i injected the GIF meta tags from GIPHY.COM to my website, so Facebook will play the GIF in my post.
Third i placed (Header) redirect to my website.
The Challenge:
One of things i needed to do was to make my Application dynamic and to handle any GIF image [direct GIF links "https://media.giphy.com/media/pOKrXLf9N5g76/giphy.gif" or Page that contains GIF "http://giphy.com/gifs/hacker-pOKrXLf9N5g76" ].
Finally, my Application now accepts direct GIF or Page contains GIF, Also the Application not only supports GIPHY.COM but any website.
Facebook Demo Post:
APP LINK :