Someone asked me how to do a redirect or how to cloak links. The entire subject can get quite complex but bottom line is that you want to disguise your link and/or control your links…..mostly in the case of affiliate links.

I also had the question from an Xsitepro user, and I didn’t think that xsitepro could or would control redirects. Turns out I was wrong, Xsitepro definitely has the capability to form, manage and create redirects. I outlined the process below that shows how to make redirect links with xsitepro.

When you join someone else’s affiliate scheme you will usually be given a url that you must use when linking to that site. The reason for this is so that any traffic you send can be monitored so that, in the event of a sale, you can be paid your agreed commission.

Unfortunately, many affiliate urls can be both unattractive and look quite obviously like affiliate links, which can be off putting to some people.

Here are a few fictional examples:

http://www.toys-toys-and-more-toys.com?aff=123456&pg=98765

http://www.carpets-for-your-hallway.com/sales/affiliate/a/12345.html?aff=54321

http://www.big-cars-go-faster.com?affiliate=10004564576567

All of the above are unattractive and not the kind of web address you’d want to use or promote by choice.

From a psychological perspective web visitors immediately form an opinion, often incorrectly so, when they notice a link is an affiliate link. They might think you are only recommending this site because you are getting paid some money. This might be true, but on many occasions you will be recommending a product that you really like and that you’d be happy to recommend for free – if there’s a chance to earn a commission for making the recommendation should you turn that down just because some of your visitors might form the wrong impression.

To solve the ugly url problem and to display a link that won’t be as immediately apparent as an affiliate link you can use redirect pages. Here’s how you might set up a redirect page for an affiliate link to the big-cars-go-faster.com web site to replace the long url listed above.

Setting up a redirect page to link to affiliate sites

1. Click on the Redirect Pages button that is found on the Other tab.

2. Click on the button.

3. In the Page Name type something such as cars.

4. In the Redirect Delay type 0. This will make the redirection happen three seconds after the person arrives at the redirect page, which gives them just enough time to read the message

5. In the Redirect URL box enter the full url for the page that you want the visitor to be redirected to, which in this case would be http://www.big-cars-go-faster.com?affiliate=10004564576567

6. On the Design tab enter an appropriate sentence such as You are being transferred to the big-cars-go-faster.com web site. My recommendation for anything to do with Big cars. This message will rarely be seen, because you entered 0 seconds in the redirect delay, but it is polite to display the message just in case anyone should land on the redirect page and not be automatically transferred, which is a rare occurrence, but it can happen

7. At the bottom of the Redirect Page window you will notice a box titled The url for this page will be:

This is the url you need to use for this redirect page. In this case it would be something like http://www.examplesite.com/cars.html Rather than type this in it is better to click on the folder icon, on the left and determine the appropriate page from the list of pages displayed. If the page you are redirecting to exists on your site this is a preferable way as it prevents you from typing in an incorrect url

For more advanced link cloaking and redirection check out Phantom Link Cloaker.…you’ll find a total solution for cloaking and redirecting your links.

[tags]xsitepro, link redirect, link cloaker, xsitepro redirect[/tags]