Link Cloaking And Affiliate Link Redirecting - How To

Link Cloaking And Affiliate Link Redirecting (Part 2)

Copyright 2009 by Willie Crawford



In part-1 of this article we looked at why link cloaking

or redirecting your affiliate links is absolutely essential.



If you missed that article, you'll find it at:

http://WillieCrawford.com/RedirectingAndCloaking/



Now let's look at specific methods of cloaking or

redirecting links.



Link shortening services such as TinyURL.com can be used

to make long, ugly affiliate links more palatable. I use

these on sites such as Twitter, and to shorten LONG URL's

on my blog. I generally don't use them in emails anymore

because I've been told that some ISP's have blacklisted

some of these services. Since mostly marketers use some of

these services, that would make sense...



htaccess redirect - This involves creating and uploading

an .htaccess file to your server. It's simple and easy,

but also intimidating to some, so I won't explain it here.

Your web host probably has a tutorial on how to do this

if you're really curious.



Your .htaccess file can affect many aspects of the way

that your website performs, so unless you want to take the

time to really understand it, you should probably not use

this method. Do it wrong and you could suddenly find

yourself unable to access certain files on your server!



HTML redirects - I use these a lot. I create an .html

file with redirect html commands embedded in the

"header" section of the html page. That file is then

uploaded to your server, and when the url is accessed,

the visitor is automatically redirected to your

affiliate link.



Download a sample file and complete instructions on

how to set up an html redirect here:

http://WillieCrawford.com/HtmlRedirect.zip



PHP redirects - I also use these a lot and have found

them faster than .html redirect in many cases.

I create a .php file with redirect html commands embedded

in the "header" section of the file. That file is then

uploaded to your server, and when the url is accessed,

the visitor is automatically redirected to your target

link.



Download a sample file and complete instructions on how

to set up a .php redirect here:

http://WillieCrawford.com/PhpRedirect.zip



Link cloaking Software. My favorite is Affiliate Cloner.

It allows you to create links that will set an affiliate

tracking cookie, and then send your visitor to any

specified page.



One reason that you might want to do this is that you're

promoting a great product with a horrible sales page. So,

you can write and host your own sales page, and create an

order link on that page that sets the cookie and then

links directly to the order form.



You may also write such great emails, that they do a great

job of selling. If your customers are already sold, you

may not want to then send them to a long sales letter

which might "unsell them." Instead, you can send those

ready-to-buy customers directly to the order form.



Affiliate Cloner does this beautifully, and you grab a

copy at http://WillieCrawford.com/AffiliateCloner/



There are also tons of scripts out there that you install

on your domain, and then redirect the affiliate links

through your domain. Those are suitable for many purposes,

and actually allow you to log-in and CHANGE what product a

particular link promotes - with just a few clicks of a

mouse. This means that if you later change your mind about

a specific product, and are promoting it in thousands of

places, with just a few clicks of your mouse, you can

send that traffic to an alternative product.



Some affiliate marketers love these scripts, but I don't

currently use one. In the internet marketing niche, I think

that the most popular ones also signal that you're promoting

an affiliate product, and lower your response rates. That's

just my opinion though.



I've just given you numerous ways to redirect or cloak your

affiliate links starting today. If you are not doing this, you

ARE losing sales!



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Willie Crawford is a website traffic generation expert.

He often distributes content (articles, videos, podcasts,

and press releases) to generate highly targeted website

traffic. To do that efficiently he uses the automated

submission service at: http://EasyPushButtonTraffic.com