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[johndes]

I have been advised to hide my clickbank links. Is this necessary? Is that the same as cloaking? How is this done? example? thanks, johndes.

 

[Aletta]

Depends on where you're wanting to put the links.

We teach people to use redirects instead of pasting ugly Clickbank links into things like your newsletters, where people will actually have to look at the link itself.

In your website it's less necessary, since most people will see something like "click here" and only the very observant will see your affiliate link in the status bar at the bottom of their browser.

Clickbank links are encrypted these days anyway, so unless you're creating your newsletter, you can probably live without doing this at this stage :)

If you are creating a newsletter and you want to use links like yoursite.com/recommends/XAffiliateProduct/ then we've got a lesson in the site-building section of the Lessons area that'll show you how to do that.

 

[johndes]

Thanks; Aletta. i seem to remember a software that was something like "tiny url". Are you familiar with it and if so is it of any value?
Thanks again. J.

 

[Aletta]

Yeah, there's a whole bunch of sites like this. It's not software... just a website.

http://tinyurl.com/

You can use this if you like... but it's much more professional looking to create a proper redirect.

 

[covenantguy]

Hi Aletta
I'm on Week 5. I've put a few Clickbank links up and the affiliate company I get them from advises that I cloak them since a) they look ugly b) they could possibly be pinched by canny Clickbank marketers if I use the format where my clickbank i.d is followed by the vendor code. They advise getting link cloaking software, as tr.im and tiny links may not always be available. I would prefer a PHP redirect.

So for a text link like this:
<a href="http://56e10cr4vcjz7oe71-hpmreobt.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=CYI" target="_top">Click Here!</a>
and a banner link ;like this:
"a href="http://MyClickbankID.vendor I.D.hop.clickbank.net"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-89" style="margin: 10px;" title="XXX" src="http://mydomainname.com/images/XXXproduct.gif" alt="" />click here</a>"

how would I create a PHP redirect? (or is this lesson coming up in the next week or so?) This issue has been bugging me for months and I just want to get it sorted!