How to: Mask Affiliate Link

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JPJedi

JPJedi

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Feb 10, 2007
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www.gigsterapp.com
Ok can someone take 2 -3 minutes and lend me a hand on masking my ugly affiliate link? I found a code snippet but I can't tell what to do with it cause the instructions were unclear.

I know I basically want to send the link that people see to another page and then just do an auto-redirect? Is this the most efficient way?

Thanks a bunch..

:bowdown::rasta:
 


JPJedi said:
I know I basically want to send the link that people see to another page and then just do an auto-redirect? Is this the most efficient way?
Click to expand...

It tends to be yes.

There are a few different types of redirects, some have advantages over others. The most common being a header redirect.

In PHP:

<?php
header( 'Location: Airline Tickets Antiques Apartments Car Accessories Cell Phone Deals at Whatever.com );
?>

Or if all you have is HTML you can use a meta refresh:

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;url='http://whatever.com/uglylink'">

-greg
 
Brotherman..do a search. This has come up about 10 times in the last month.

Hint 1:
header (Location:url);
 
HTML: 
<html>
<head>
<title>Who Does Do?</title>
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="2;URL=dodgy affiliate url goes here">
<script>
url='and here again';
if(document.images) { top.location.replace(url); }
else { top.location.href=url; }
</script>
</head>
<body>
<script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
_uacct = "UA-123456-78";
urchinTracker();
</script>
</body>
</html>

Place URL where stated and replace the analytics code with your own (always track your redirects). Copy and paste into a html file, name it and upload. Now instead of linking directly to the offer, link to this file and it will redirect to the gay ebook your promoting. Only joking ;)

Now, flee for your life, noob. :rasta:
 
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Demon,

Thanks a bunch that was perfect example.

I have one follow-up question.. Does it matter which affliate link I use? Cause I am with NeverblueAds for this site and they have links for banners, emails, advance, etc. Is it ok to use any of the affliate links with my id? I think there is actually a 35 character text link I could use for the link..

I guess I was trying to see if there is a difference int he links for banners, emails, and text.

:bowdown::rasta:
 
Ok I updated my site with masked links.... thanks Demon for that example. That was perfect...

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="2;URL=dodgy affiliate url goes here"> - Do I keep the 2;URL ? does that signal a delay or something? that was the only thing I didn't get from the example.

Take a look at the updated site with masked links - Santa's Letters

Thanks again for the awsome help....

:bowdown:
 
Since ya'll are being nice to the n00bs to day , I'll jump in here and ask... I get the meta refresh and I get the analytics code but what does this stuff in the middle do?

url='and here again';
if(document.images) { top.location.replace(url); }
else { top.location.href=url; }
</script>
</head>
<body>
<script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
 
Yea they are being awsome today...


turbo I am going to take a guess here from what I know to see if I can help. It looks like it trys to see if the page is jsut an image and if so it sets that property for the link. If it is a document (like in my case) it will update the location with the link. Wow now that I read that i don't know if that will help you or now... I probably should have been quiet.

Now if I have 5 links on my main page that point to my redirect page (send.html). What should I expect for impressions? I am thinking that the impressions will only register when they go to the redirect page. is this correct? Then I would see why analytics is important for the redirect page to track imressions accuratly. because if I had the 5 links on the main page my affiliate link it will register 5 impressions correct? So I am actually helping myself when I use the send.html. Thanks...
 
just another ...

that's just another place to redirect.
the if ( document.images ) is a quick way to check on the browser type, and depending on that you'll be using different top.location references.
Basically there's 2 ways to redirect in his one example. If the javascript doesn't get it done then the meta refresh will.
 
do what now?

If you have 5 links one your sales page that link to send, and send redirects to the offer, then yes, the only impressions that will be counted are the ones on the offer.
sales -> send -> offer.

Another thing to notice is that using subids there to figure out which of the 5 links on your page is getting the most clicks will not work because all five links redirect to your offer page at the same url, which is where the links get counted (the google analytics will count that, I think).
 
you could always use php redirects, and have separate redirects for each link and then track which links were clicked on the page no?
 
projectv3: yes.

I think that though was a step above this discussion :)
I use a redirect.php script and record my redirects in a database table, but I figured that was overkill to the question.
 
What about that oh so convienent little redirect dropdown box in your cpanel? Anyone see any problems using that? Does it matter that it doesn't get that 2 second delay?
 
And yea I will need you to go ahead and come in on Saturday too....

Cheers.... Already got a conversions in less than 2 hours since the masked links. So hopefully it can keep coming.. Thanks everyone for the help today it looks like it might pay off..
 
The 2 second delay is to make sure that the user is tracked. Whenever I use a redirect without a delay analytics doesn't display any stats for that page when I know for a fact that the page does get traffic. You can write a little message after the <body> tag telling your users they are being redirected for tracking purposes just so they won't have to look at a blank page for 2 seconds.
 
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