Internet marketing always comes with affiliate links attached. It’s something that people just have to accept. Unfortunately, sometimes crooked folk hijack these links. But even if nobody hijacks them, there are those who’ll simply remove the affiliate portion so you’re deprived of the commission. These people gain nothing by doing this. They simply get some weird satisfaction in conning people.

The good news is there are programs available for cloaking links while tracking click-throughs made. Below is an uncomplicated internet business tip you may use on your website to cloak links and improve their presentation at the same time.

Before letting you in on the internet business tip, just keep in mind that there are other means for addressing this online problem. Tiny URL is one, but this kind of link doesn’t enjoy wide popularity. Turning to such links is like broadcasting to everyone that you’re hiding something. You’re practically telling people that you’re about to withholding certain things. Nevertheless, some see it as effective, and providing awesome site presentation and recommendation from the website owner.

On to the secret… Say that you want to conceal this link: http://www.greatest-product.com/affiliate-area/start.php?offer=youraffiliate-id&pid=1. Notice that it’s super lengthy and unappealing. The link runs the risk of being “wrapped” in text-based emails and having its click-through capabilities lost.

What can be done? Open a text editor like Notepad. In the editor, key in the items below on an empty page. If using HTML editors, see to it that the page is blank. Enter the following:

<?php
header(‘location: http:www.greatest-product.com/affiliate-area/start.php?offer=youraffiliate-id&pid=1’);
?>

You’re done. That is it.

From here, move on to saving the file in a directory found on your site. A sub-directory name like “recommends” is strongly suggested. Next comes uploading the file and directory on the server. Now test the file to see if it’s working. The one thing you should NEVER do is send out emails or place links on a webpage that was not tested.

In the URL address field, key in http://www.yourdomain.com/recommends/filename.php. This should go directly to the webpage of the affiliate products being sold by you. It skips your website completely so individuals don’t have a chance to view the affiliate codes embedded within the php file.

After testing the page and making sure everything is working right, you proceed with incorporating the page – either directly to your site’s web pages (if you’ve performed product reviews or something similar) or to an email list.

The link will of course, appear this way: http//www.yourdomain.com/recommends/filename.php.

It definitely looks much better than the original with the confusing filename. Plus, it’s less mysterious than Tiny URL versions. The URL further states that the site is “recommended” by you. Success won’t be far behind if you use this method on all your websites and email messages to people.

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Filed under: Affiliate Marketing • Internet Business Tips

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