Wordpress excerpt function, bad output - php

Question

My first question here:
I am using this code to show excerpts on my Wordpress. It allows me to show tags within the excerpt and it works OK, but the problem is when a have a word that is linked, after it I always get one space before the comma.
Example:
Google, Yahoo
Output:
Google , Yahoo
The space after the comma is on purpose and it should be there. The one before is one too much.
Any tips on how to fix this?
Code that I use in order to define excerpt:
function new_wp_trim_excerpt($text) {
$raw_excerpt = $text;
if ( '' == $text ) {
$text = get_the_content('');
$text = strip_shortcodes( $text );
$text = apply_filters('the_content', $text);
$text = str_replace(']]>', ']]>', $text);
$text = strip_tags($text, '<a>');
$excerpt_length = apply_filters('excerpt_length', 70);
$words = preg_split('/(<a.*?a>)|\n|\r|\t|\s/', $text, $excerpt_length + 1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY|PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE );
if ( count($words) > $excerpt_length ) {
array_pop($words);
$text = implode(' ', $words);
$text = $text . $excerpt_more;
} else {
$text = implode(' ', $words);
}
}
return apply_filters('new_wp_trim_excerpt', $text, $raw_excerpt);
}
remove_filter('get_the_excerpt', 'wp_trim_excerpt');
add_filter('get_the_excerpt', 'new_wp_trim_excerpt');

Answer 1

It appears to be an issue with your regex, if you add a comma after the <a.*?a> does that help? Here's the regex line with the comma included:
$words = preg_split('/(<a.*?a>,)|\n|\r|\t|\s/', $text, $excerpt_length + 1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY|PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE );