January 23rd, 2010
Many companies are adopting a different type of marketing strategy which was till now relatively unknown, though they use regular advertising methods too like search engine optimization, but they also use unconventional techniques like publishing reviews of products or services.
They use the traffic of one website to drive to another website. This type of marketing plays a very important role and continues to thrive, though they are still under the clout of other bigger tools that marketers have like search engines, e-mail, and website syndication. But there is one major roadblock in this type of marketing and this is that often marketers use standard long URLs, because of this they often compromise their credibility with various search engines. They are often mistaken as spam links and thus ignored by users.
Most of the users are already saturated with the amount of promotions and publicity that they have to encounter and when they see a link which appears spam, it is highly unlikely that they follow it. Also standard and long URLs are more susceptible to hackers and malignant Malware. They keep looking for such URLs because they can easily intercept them and eat some of your commission.
Sometimes you yourself would not want to reveal the URL to the user because then they would come to know that it is an affiliate link, and will not follow the link. It is more sensible to hide your URL or get it shortened. One website which does this job to perfection is http://www.dom.ir/u.php, it provides free short URLs.
You can use the service of this website and get yourself a free shortened URL. The new links will only be a few alphabets long and will appear more professional and will have a better impact on the audience for example you can convert a long URL like http://www.yourhost.com/user/~yourdir/yourdir.htm to a free short URL http://dom.ir/2.
You even have two choices, one is to get a free random number URL or a free Tag name URL. In the case of random number URL, you will get a free short URL which will be of the form http://dom.ir/x, where ‘x’ can be any random number generated by the website. Whereas in the case of free Tag name URL, you will have to submit your own tag which you wish to have on the URL, and the URL will be of the form http://dom.ir/yourTAG. This way you can actually add some keywords to the URL to as your Tag name. This will further increase the reach of the URL. Whereas the option of getting a random number works perfectly when you don’t want the user to know the page on which he is being redirected. This way the user will neither come to whether the link is an affiliate link nor will he be know what will he be getting if he follows the link. Both have their positives; just pick the one which suits the best to you.
Both cases are fairly simple and doesn’t require a sign up, just copy and paste your link in the space provided. If you are going for a free tag name URL then you will have to enter a tag of your choice. In a matter of seconds you will get your free short URL. So don’t keep sticking to the old ways, get yourself a more professional and a free short URL.
Tags: Free Short Url, Short Url
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January 23rd, 2010
The most common way to hide your IP address is to use what is known as a proxy server. Proxy servers are machines that allow client indirect access to various internet resources, such as websites. When you request a webpage from the proxy server it requests the page from the web server. Your machine never directly requests the webpage so your IP address never shows up in their logs. There are three main types of proxy server implementations: Website based proxy servers, browser configured proxy servers, and installed software proxy server.Website Bases Proxy Servers
A website based proxy server is a website that you visit. You enter the URL of the webpage you want to see. The proxy server then requests the page of you want and then displays in on your screen. In most cases the proxy server does not indentify itself as a proxy server when requesting the page, thus hiding your IP address. These types of sites are generally slow and will display additional advertising on the site you visit.Browser Configured Proxy Servers
Most current browsers (such and Firefox and Internet Explorer) allow you to configure them to route all their traffic through proxy server without you having to type in the URL. These servers are generally free to use, but can be very slow. These proxy servers may identify themselves as proxy server and may reveal your IP address if the webmaster knows to do a little more searching.Installed Software Proxy Servers
Installed software proxy servers are very similar to the ones above with the exception they are a pay service. They are generally faster and sometimes allow you to select which state and/or country you want to appear to be coming from.Be warned: with all these services you want to understand that there is an inherent risk. If you are passing all your web traffic through these machines you are also passing user names, passwords, and whatever sensitive information you are looking at.
To learn more about how to hide your IP address and how to test to see if your software is working properly visit the hide IP section of whatismyipaddress.com
Tags: Address, Anonymous, Anonymously, Hide, Proxy, Server, Servers, SURF
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January 22nd, 2010
Affiliate link hijacking is a big problem, some people will change your affiliate URL to their own before purchasing a product so they themselves get paid the commission giving them a discounted product.
This problem is far worse if you are promoting to the affiliate marketers crowd as they can spot an affiliate link from 100 yards away! They will just replace your affiliate ID with their own and “hijack” your commissions.
Some people just simply hate the thought that you will make a commission from their purchase and will just cut off your affiliate ID at the end of the URL. If you don’t take steps to try and hide your affiliate links from hijackers, then you will carry on losing commissions.
Using a redirect php script
This is an easy technique to implement, all you have to do is create a single php file that includes a small piece of code, so if you are trying to promote www-yourID.merchID.hop.clickbank-net then you way create a blank page called, say, http://discounts.php that just contains the redirect script, so the actual link you promote would be www-yoursite-com/discounts.
Unfortunately this technique does have one drawback, some affiliate merchant links will still be visible in the browser address bar, it works great with clickbank products.
Using .htaccess to hide links.
This is works very much the same as the one above except you don’t need to use any scripts, you just need to add a line of code to your .htaccess file.
As with the redirect script above, just create a blank page and upload it to your server, then add the following line of code to your .htaccess file.
Unfortunately this has the same drawbacks as the redirect script method, your affiliate link may still be visible on the merchants site in the browser address bar.
Using a zero-frame to cloak links.
This is the cloaking technique I use most often to hide affiliate links.
Using this method makes it look as if you are sending people to a page on YOUR site, even your URL will be still be visible in the address bar unlike the above cloaking techniques, people will think they are still on your site but they are actually viewing the merchants site.
You simply create a page as mentioned above and insert a few lines of code, I also add a title meta tag to fit the description of the product I’m selling.
However, you MUST test your link before promoting it! This technique can effect the tracking on some sites, so make sure that you will be getting credit for all the traffic you send their way.
How to hide links in a browser.
This technique is used on your website so that when someone hovers over a link, they don’t see the actual destination link in their browser status bar.
So if your actual link was www-affiliateproduct-com/uglyaffiliatelink?123 they would only see http://www.yoursite.com in their browser.
So there you have it, 4 easy ways to hide or cloak your affiliate links, using these techniques will certainly increase your sales and reduce link hijacking.
If you aren’t using any techniques to hide your affiliate links then I can guarantee that you are losing affiliate commissions! You must protect yourself from these hijackers, the harder you make it for people to recognise an affiliate link, the more commission you will make.
Tags: Affiliate Links, Cloak Links, Hide Links, Htaccess, Link Cloaking, Link Redirection, Mask Links
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