Affiliate Link Redirecting And Cloaking

by Shawn Collins on May 25, 2009

One of the key tactics for an affiliate is redirecting and/or cloaking affiliate links.

Affiliates cloak their links for a variety of reasons, but I do it so my affiliate links will be short, so I can use then in text email newsletters, and some people don’t like clicking affiliate links.

While there are many ways to redirect and cloak affiliate links, I am covering two: .htaccess and a software program called Ninja Affiliate.

Personally, I use .htaccess, which is a fairly simple file anybody can create (see the steps in my Affiliate Link Redirecting and Cloaking video), because it’s quick and easy. Also, it’s free.

One thing about .htaccess though is that if you enter a line in the wrong format, it can bring down your site. So always test, and if this happens, take the file down from your server while you troubleshoot.

The Ninja Affiliate program program is easy to use and has lots of features, but it also costs nearly $100.

Affiliate Tim Jones has been touting Ninja Affiliate since it was released last year.

You can see an ironic .htaccess link in person here: http://www.affiliatetip.com/ninja-affiliate

I created that one to promote Ninja Affiliate. As you can see after clicking, the redirects take place quickly, and they are barely noticeable.

The presentation is available to view or download at http://www.slideshare.net/affsum/affiliate-link-redirecting-and-cloaking.

{ 14 comments }

← Previous Comments

Shawn Collins November 3, 2009 at 7:16 pm: I don’t believe there is a way to hide that affiliate information, short of using frames.
Wil November 3, 2009 at 5:14 pm: Why do I get ?hop=nickname showing up. How can I hide this?
Niche June 3, 2009 at 6:09 pm: I use HTML redirects. Just because it’s easy and works
Jeremy May 30, 2009 at 2:26 am: If you’re not too keen on editing your htaccess file often, make one entry that redirects all of your specially coded links to one php file that then handles the bulk of the work. Example:
mysite.com/go/ninja-affiliate
would redirect to go.php?out=ninja-affiliate
And then mange your redirects by editing the php file. Use either a Case statement or a multi-dimensional array (of keyword -> url), for easy editing.
Jonathan May 26, 2009 at 5:41 pm: Yes… definitely outsourcing the task would be on the list if I decided to do it.

Thanks for the quick reply and the alternative method. This is good to see in such a simple format. I’ll probably be sending people here to explain this to them.

Thanks Shawn!
Shawn Collins May 26, 2009 at 1:01 pm: Your Message@GVInc:
I don’t know how prevalent link theft is – I don’t worry about it myself.
Shawn Collins May 26, 2009 at 1:00 pm: Your Message@Jonathan:
Hi Jonathan -

The reason I would change (I used meta-redirects in the past) would be to more easily manage changes in the future.

It’s nice to just deal with one file, rather than opening individual files for each change.

But I think I’d want to outsource that task.
GVInc May 26, 2009 at 11:47 am: Thanks for the tip.
Is there really an extremely high rate of affiliate link theft?
Jonathan May 26, 2009 at 11:21 am: Hey Shawn,

I’ve got hundreds of old links successfully using meta-refresh redirects and wondering if there’s a convincing argument for changing them over. Can you share the reasons not to use meta-refresh redirects for affiliate links?

Thanks!
Jonathan
http://www.AffiliateAdvice.us
http://www.CarrieAndJonathan.com
Brett Bumeter May 26, 2009 at 9:58 am: I looked at Blair’s plugin and do like the look of it.

I’ve been using the Redirection Plugin for WP lately (after my own .htaccess file got a little too out of control).

It does not shrink links, but does make redirections easy from the WP interface, and also does provide stats too.
Blair WIlliams May 25, 2009 at 7:14 pm: I wrote a free plugin for WordPress that does pretty much everything that Affiliate Ninja does and more. You should check it out here:

Pretty Link

I wrote it to serve my own affiliate marketing efforts because I was modifying my .htaccess file like mad but it started to get really cluttered (it started to get hard to manage all the links) and I wasn’t able to track clicks, with it. Pretty Link does a great job with both and gives you much more detailed reporting on your clicks.

Let me know what you think.
Shawn Collins May 25, 2009 at 2:30 pm: Your Message@brian:
I haven’t really played around with the programs, but .htaccess files are based on simple conventions once you get into doing it.
brian May 25, 2009 at 2:13 pm: Thanks for the overview of redirects. I spent a while when I started AM trying to figure out what redirects were and how a non-programmer like myself could do them. Personally, I like the way that programs like P/T202 integrate the creation of redirects so that non-programmers can generate the redirects automatically and track stats…
Cleanse Body May 25, 2009 at 1:04 pm: I have settled on modifying the .htaccess file for hiding the affiliate links and then spreading them over the site with the cross-linker plugin which is free.