Cloaking Affiliate Links

[AidanLCFC]

Has anyone done this using .htaccess ? Am I correct in thinking you only need to do a redirect on the .htaccess form, change the links on the site and all is good to go?

 

[Strider1973]

Yes that's easy, just use for example on your website:

httpx://www.mywebsite.com/links/bet365

and add this to your htaccess:

Redirect 302 /links/bet365 https://www.bet365affiliates.com?affiliate=123_456789

 

[Strider1973]

It's really a bad idea to insert the whole aff link on the own website. Not just because it's not pretty, but also because you might have to change the link in the future, and it's much easier to change it in one place. Plus you can easily disallow the whole /links folder through robots.txt.

Also I'd recommend you to check your ssl settings as I got a warning for the first website from your signature.

 

[AidanLCFC]

Yes that's easy, just use for example on your website:

httpx://www.mywebsite.com/links/bet365

and add this to your htaccess:

Redirect 302 /links/bet365 https://www.bet365affiliates.com?affiliate=123_456789

and nothing else needs to be done? that's right ain't it?

 

[Jono78]

Dinomatic do a pretty good free cloaking plugin if your using wp.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[Strider1973]

and nothing else needs to be done? that's right ain't it?

Yes. That's how I do it for years now.

There are also other solutions which I use on some websites, like creating a folder and using a index.php file to redirect the aff-links, or using a plugin (like Pretty Links), but I think the above htaccess solution is the cleanest and fastest one.

 

[preditor]

and nothing else needs to be done? that's right ain't it?

You should do as suggested via htaccess file, 302 or 301 (i prefer 301) and also remember to update your robots.txt file.

Example:
/go/casino1
/go/casino2
in robots.txt add:
Disallow: /go/

 

[NDG]

We've always used the method of creating folders with an index.php file.

Also I'd recommend you to check your ssl settings as I got a warning for the first website from your signature.

Your sites, casinofreebets and freebetshub are showing an SSL certificate error.

 

[AussieDave]

You should do as suggested via htaccess file, 302 or 301 (i prefer 301)

Under usual circumstances, a htaccess redirect should use 301. However, because aff links could change; alter or whatever, using a 302 is far better

 

[preditor]

Under usual circumstances, a htaccess redirect should use 301. However, because aff links could change; alter or whatever, using a 302 is far better

Well, if you do lot of changes on your affiliate trackers, and dont block robots by using a nofollow/sponsored tag in the links, yes then you might prefer do it 302 but in the end if you do a proper cloaking of links, where bots are not following your links and block them via robots and proper rel- tags you can use 301,302 or even 307 if you want.

There is no "correct awnser" of ether 301 or 302 is best, since bouth are the most used ones.

I use 301, becouse i dont change trackers that often and i really dont want thouse evil bots, who dont give a f if i block them and they follow links anyway, that i "might" change the link soon, please visit me again soon - taking thouse evil bots back in future for more frequent scans (stealing bandwitch) from my site.

Just my thoughts of why i do 301 instead.