12 Nov 06 8:21 pm
lasbar: If you could detail the process you used to try and redirect the link/URL that would help us figure out what the problem is.
Lori: Personally, I use redirect URLs for four reasons.
One, people are fairly savvy. Often times, when they see an affiliate link, they know they trying to be sold something. Having a normal URL makes your recommendation look more like a recommendation than a sales pitch.
Those savvy people can simply change the affiliate link and take out the code necessary to insure you get a commission. And there are people out there who can change your code to their own and steal your commission. A redirect link offers you protection from all of this.
Also, you can track your own redirect links whereas you can't track affiliate links. Let's say you were doing a split test on Google Adwords--using two different ads--and you wanted to see how many people who visited your site via the ads ended up clicking on your affiliate link. However, you want to know which ad was more successful at creating more clicks once people got to your page. You could use two different redirect links to the same affiliate product and then see which redirect link was used the most and then you'd know which ad was most successful.
And finally, using redirect links helps insure you won't experience any serious headaches in the future. Let's say you did a ton of marketing for a product using your affiliate link. Then, a year later, the affiliate disappears and their Web site no longer works. Your link is out there all over the place, but now it, and all your hard work is completely wasted. However, if you used a redirect link, all what you would have to do is change your redirect link to point somewhere else and all your traffic would have a new place to go where you could be selling them a new product or something.
The easiest way to redirect a domain name is to go into the control panel of your Web site (your Web host should have given you info on how to do that) and look for the "Redirect" option and make changes from there. This can be changed easily and often.
There are also javascript and php scripts that are easy to use and will create redirect links. I'd suggest using these because, rather than simply forwarding a domain name, you could create multiple redirect links. As an example, you could have mysite.com/product1.htm and mysite.com/prodct2.htm both directed to the exact same affiliate site.
I am not sure if having a redirect link helps with search engines or directories. Someone else will have to answer that one.
