Cloaking your affiliate links -- Here's how!

[George Spellwin]

Here's how to cloak your affiliate links

If you've ever been annoyed at the length of affiliate URLs, here's a simple solution to your problem.

You can replace long URLs with fast, short, server-side redirects, so that people won't feel "pitched" and won't be turned off by links that are obviously affiliate links.

Here's how to do it.

Creat a directory on your site called "go" In the "go" directory, create a directory for each of your affiliate links. For example, create a directory called "go" at yoursite.com/go and a directory in the "go" directory called "elite"

In the "elite" directory, put a file called .htaccess -- create it using a plain text editor. There should only be one line in the file and it should look like this:

Redirect /go/chemwiz http://www.elitefitness.com/g. o/XXXX

Note that there are 3 parts here, which should all be on one line : the Redirect command, the location of the directory you want redirected relative to the root of your site (/go/elite) and the full URL of the location you want that request sent to. Each of the 3 is separated by a single space, but all on one line.

So, if I were to give out the URL http://www.yoursite.com/go/elite this would send people to elitefitness.com using your affiliate code!

 

[George Spellwin]

Here's more -- an affiliate question

Message by [email protected] on Sunday, July 6, 2003 7:05 am with ip 62.254.0.40
Hi George
I am interested in cloaking my affiliate link, I have created a directory on my site called go and a further directory called elite and a file called .htaccess which I have inputted the line
Redirect /go/chemwiz http://www.elitefitness.com/g. o/XXXX

 

[George Spellwin]

Ok, here's how to do it. In the .htaccess file, put all this on one line


Redirect /go/elite http://www.elitefitness.com/g. o/XXXX/http://www.elitefitness.com/reports/guidesales/

After the word "Redirect" the first part is the path to your directory from the root. So for example, your directory elite is in your directory go, so the first part in this case is /go/elite.

If you created a directory called david and put a directory called george in that one and put a directory called elite in that one, the .htaccess file would look like this:

Redirect /david/george/elite http://www.elitefitness.com/g. o/XXXX/http://www.elitefitness.com/reports/guidesales/

The second Part, the URL, has your affiliate ID where the XXXX is. Following the XXXX is the URL called the landing page. This can be any page on the Elite Fitness site where you want to send someone. In this example, you are sending someone to the Chem Wiz sales letter.

This URL would send someone to the Platinum sales letter.
http://www.elitefitness.com/g. o/XXXX/http://www.elitefitness.com/reports/platinum/

We use the redirect because you can give out a much shorter affiliate url. In your case, the URL http://www.yoursite.com/go/elite is the same as http://www.elitefitness.com/g. o/XXXX/http://www.elitefitness.com/reports/guidesales/

I hope that helps! Let me know the name of your site and I can take a look!

NOTE: In all these examples, I put an extra space betweed the g. and the o -- this is because on Elite Fitness only, you cannot post your affiliate URL -- if you try, it will not work. Do not include the space on your own sites.

 

[BodybuildingPro.com]

George, is this recommended? Do customers really get turned off, i.e., has it been researched or is it a general rule for net gurus? I know you've been in the game longer than I have so you would probably know. Currently, the EF program is converting quite well, but I might go ahead and cloak the links if it will help.

 

[Zyglamail]

Another option would be to simply use a php and its "header" function to redirect assuming your server has php installed.

Lets say your domain name is "mydomain.com" and on your mail page you have a link that goes to elitefitness.com but if someone does a mouse over the link or even looks at the source code for your page you dont want them to actually see the destination of the link.

What you would do is create the link on your web page as you normally would, but instead of putting elitefitness.com in the anchor tag you would point the link to a file on your server.

For this example I am going to create a link on my web page that point to an html page called "getinfo.html" which would looks something like this.

<a href="http://mydomain.com/getinfo.html">Get info here!</a>

The above would simply place a text link that says "get infor here".

Next you would create a web page on your server called "getinfo.html" and in it simply put the following

<?
header( "Location: http://elitefitness.com" );
?>

now what will hapen is that when people click the link to the page getinfo.html the php command will simply redirect them to elitefitness.com....or what ever URL you would like them redirected to.

 

[George Spellwin]

George, is this recommended? Do customers really get turned off, i.e., has it been researched or is it a general rule for net gurus? I know you've been in the game longer than I have so you would probably know. Currently, the EF program is converting quite well, but I might go ahead and cloak the links if it will help.

It will help. Some people will even remove your affiliate code if you do not cloak. Also, if you have a list and you mail affiliate links, you are more likely to trigger spam filters. Here's the best ways to cloak from best to worst:

1. Best: Register your own domain name at a place like domainsite.com and have that redirect to your affiliate landing page.
2. Use the /go/ directory trick.
3. Use a meta refresh
4. Mask your affiliate code with javascript onmouseover.

Just make sure not to use method 4 in a mass mailing because it will get filtered by the spam filters.

 

[peanutbutter2]

I have tried your method, the only problem is that i cant create .htaccess in my directory my host wont accept any file that starts with a dot in front of it, dont know how you guys done it

 

[George Spellwin]

I have tried your method, the only problem is that i cant create .htaccess in my directory my host wont accept any file that starts with a dot in front of it, dont know how you guys done it

The most elegant way to do it is to go to www.domainsite.com and register a domain for $6.99 then use the URL redirect feature to redirect it to your EF affiliate link.

 

[McFakerton]

Interesting. I've never considered using the .htaccess file to do aff stuff.

Anyway, I've got a way that should be easier for most people and should work on hosts that don't allow you to dick with the .htaccess file.

create a file (just a text file) called go.php in the file you can put your affiliate links.

Here's an example file:

<?PHP
if ($m == "") ($link = "http://www.yoursite.com"); // Blank
if ($m == "secrets2006") ($link = "http://www.elitefitness.com/g._o/XXXX/http://www.elitefitness.com/reports/secrets/");
if ($m == "chemwiz") ($link = "http://www.elitefitness.com/g._o/XXXX/http://www.elitefitness.com/reports/chemwiz/");

header("Location: $link"); // Jump to URL
exit();

?>

That will make it so if you access, for example, www.yoursite.com/go.php?m=secrets2006 that it will throw you to your affiliate link for the Secrets of Mail Order Steroid Success. If it's /go.php?m=chemwiz then I imagine you can figure out where that'll send you. If it's left blank then it just sends you to the root of your domain.

Then, all you have to do is add another if ($m == ...) line for each aff link. This can work for non EF links as well.

 

[Ami1]

Good tutorial at How To Cloak Affiliate Links

Shows you how to create an HTML redirect