Hiding Affiliate Links

[cowboy]

If you are redirecting from a php or html page to hide your affiliate link, is this the best way from an SEO standpoint?

meta http-equiv="REFRESH" content="0;url=http://www.myaffiliatelink.com"

[Guard Dog]

Originally Posted by cowboy

If you are redirecting from a php or html page to hide your affiliate link, is this the best way from an SEO standpoint?

meta http-equiv="REFRESH" content="0;url=http://www.myaffiliatelink.com"

I'm not sure there is much of a matter from an SEO point of view. The link goes elsewhere, so the only thing you would want to do is make sure the link doesn't have an anchor text that helps out the casino (i.e, 'Online Casino' or something like that). Reserve those anchors for your own internal links.

Mine are like this in most cases:

http://www.rivalslots.com/go.php?id=rockbet&bsize=468x60

Nothing 'SEO' about it, really. If I wanted to make the link more search engine friendly, I could... but why bother for this type of link? The engines will never need to index that redirect.

If it were an INTERNAL linked page, I might change it to:

http://www.rivalslots.com/go-468x60/rockbet

[cowboy]

Thanks Guard Dog. I suppose what I'm getting at is that in my example, I was using a special page that basically only has the code posted above in it, and then linking to that page to send players to the link. I know 301 redirects are better than 302 redirects. I think the code above qualifies as a 301, but not 100% sure. And then I guess you should probably slap a nofollow tag on the link to that redirect page. I'm pretty sure this is an ok way to do it, but not 100% on it.

[Guard Dog]

Originally Posted by cowboy

Thanks Guard Dog. I suppose what I'm getting at is that in my example, I was using a special page that basically only has the code posted above in it, and then linking to that page to send players to the link. I know 301 redirects are better than 302 redirects. I think the code above qualifies as a 301, but not 100% sure. And then I guess you should probably slap a nofollow tag on the link to that redirect page. I'm pretty sure this is an ok way to do it, but not 100% on it.

Ah, yes, sorry I misunderstood. The 'ass-end' of my code is a 301 redirect using php:

        header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
        header("Location: $retrievedurl");
        exit();

[shovi]

The best method for SEO is to redirect all aff links with 301 through directory like /out/ or /visit/ and disallow that directory with robots.txt.

Remeber to use nofollow when linking those 301 redirects especially when they are blocked with robots.txt file.

[Smoky89]

Thanks for the grate tip, i will try it out... keep up the good work...

[Bonus Paradise]

Originally Posted by shovi

The best method for SEO is to redirect all aff links with 301 through directory like /out/ or /visit/ and disallow that directory with robots.txt.

Remeber to use nofollow when linking those 301 redirects especially when they are blocked with robots.txt file.

interesting,
great that this thread came up, since days I am looking for answers

I did make a visit folder
and started changin my links, so they are mysite.com/visit/123-casino.php

in the php files I am using the php redirect.
using that code

PHP Code:

 <?
header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" ); 
header( "Location: http://123casinoafftagxxx.com" ); 
?>

I see Guard Dog posted a diffrent one, please let me know what is ok to use.

I did also disallow the visit folder in robots.txt
and I think google does not like that.

Since a few days my ranks dropped,
it can be it has to do with goole cannot see now where I send my visitors?
If you disallow it in robots.txt you loose also many content relevant links?


the other thing is, on my forum I have the option to add a rel no follow to ALL external links, except the ones I white list,

I cannot add a automatic rel nofollow to mysite.com/visit

So today I had another idea and would like to hear your opinion
what if I upload my visit folder to another unused domain of mine
I have i.e. mydomain.info
I could there add on the index the robots meta tag noindex, nofollow
I would have the auto rel nofollow on all my affiliate links at the forum.

all my links would be mydomain.info/visit/123-casino.php

And I must not disallow them then in the robots text on the new domain then.

Appreciate any thoughts, advise

thanks in advance