What are some common challenges that PHP beginners may face when trying to create an affiliate-link system for their online shop?

One common challenge that PHP beginners may face when creating an affiliate-link system for their online shop is securely handling and tracking affiliate links to ensure proper attribution and commission tracking. To solve this, beginners can use unique identifiers or tokens in the affiliate links and store them in a database for tracking purposes.

// Generate a unique token for each affiliate link
$affiliate_token = uniqid();

// Store the affiliate token in the database along with the corresponding affiliate user
// This can be done when the affiliate link is generated or when the link is clicked
// Example database query:
// INSERT INTO affiliate_links (link, token, affiliate_user) VALUES ('http://example.com/product123', '$affiliate_token', 'affiliate123');