Wordpress Redirects

[Steve_gts]

Hi All,

I'm just trying to get my head around the whole affiliate thing before I actually get started. I have my accounts etc now, but before I start including any links, I need to get my head around the whole redirected links and cloaking thing.

Is there a free or relatively cheap redirect plugin for wordpress which is recommended? My main concern is updating numerous links if the merchant makes changes, but also how the links look.

(I've been doing seo for years but never worked on an affiliate site before so I'm having to learn this kind of thing from scratch!)

Thanks

[angienewton]

I don't use plugin's for that because I do my redirects via my XSitePro web design software however Lynn has a few posts about affiliate redirects.

Check out The #1 Reason to Create Affiliate Redirects (http://www.clicknewz.com/1504/redirect-affiliate-links/) and you'll find a link at the bottom of that post that will show you the code to use to make redirects.

[Steve_gts]

Thanks Angie, I had considered doing it that way originally (also probably instructing googlebots to noindex the orphan pages), but thought it could get to the point where I have loads of them and could get a bit messy.

I know there are several of them out there but wondered which is the preferred option, free or paid.

[ChristineCobb]

You might look at the Pretty Link plugin. Within the admin screen, you enter your full affiliate URL and then choose a short name which will go after your domain name. For example if you click http://Mybonusblog.com/nams you will be directed to the NAMS sales page with my affiliate link because I chose "nams" as my short name.

[Steve_gts]

Thanks Chris, that looks like the kind of thing. However that leads on to another question I'm afraid......... the plugin itself is free for the redirects, but I'd have to pay for "cloaking", I thought in affiliate terms they were the same thing, do you know what the difference is and why I might need the paid version?

[ChristineCobb]

The free version sends a regular 301 or 307 redirect which means that when the person clicks the link and arrives at the merchant site, the full url will show in the address bar. The Pro version sends the person to the merchant site in an iframe so that the full url is not visible. The pro version also has some other cool features like being able to link selected keywords automatically in your blog posts. For example if you are linking to an Amazon book, you can set it up so that any place the title of the book appears, it will be automatically linked and you can limit the times in one post that it is linked.

Hope that helps.

[al smith]

Hi Steve,

There are a few redirect plugins that work well that are free.

I use "Redirection" by John Godley, and "Simple 301 Redirects" by Scott Nelle. Both of these are free and work well.

They do not cloak links but are simple redirects and I have been using one or the other for some months now.

Just do a plugin search from your plugins page in the admin and you ahould be able to try them out for yourself.

Hope this helps.

Al

[Suzi]

I don't use plugin's for that because I do my redirects via my XSitePro web design software however Lynn has a few posts about affiliate redirects.

Check out The #1 Reason to Create Affiliate Redirects (http://www.clicknewz.com/1504/redirect-affiliate-links/) and you'll find a link at the bottom of that post that will show you the code to use to make redirects.

Ah Angie! Good to know. I have been doing my redirects with Lynn's html redirect code - but as I use xsitepro for the main packabook site, ages ago I started to investigate using xsitepro for it instead. But I got stuck somewhere and then gave up. I may have to try again and figure out where I was getting stuck and then ask you for some help if that's ok!

[Infinity]

I use the free Pretty Link plugin for Wordpress too. :) It does the job well...

[angienewton]

Ah Angie! Good to know. I have been doing my redirects with Lynn's html redirect code - but as I use xsitepro for the main packabook site, ages ago I started to investigate using xsitepro for it instead. But I got stuck somewhere and then gave up. I may have to try again and figure out where I was getting stuck and then ask you for some help if that's ok!

Suzi,
I'm happy to help! If you're on Skype send me your user name via direct message here and we'll touch base.

If you don't want to wait, all you need to do in XSitePro is choose the site you want to use for the redirect, click the OTHER tab and then click on REDIRECT PAGES (should be in the right column). Then click ADD and you're ready to go.

We'll use my NAMS redirect as an example.

First go under the section for page name type in the name you want it to be, all lower case. (mine for NAMS is nams). As you type it in, you'll see at the bottom the words "The URL for this page will be... so you can see exactly what it will look like. If it's going to be longer than one word, use the dash - between each word. Mine says http://www.angienewton.com/nams.html so yours will look similar (not sure if you're using the .html though)

Keep redirect delay at 0 seconds

Then plug in your long ugly affiliate link below that where it says redirect url.

There is a section for notes if you need to remember anything about that particular redirect. And under that you'll see what looks like a website page...just leave that blank.

Click OK, SAVE then Publish! You're done! Then you can test it out.

[Suzi]

Suzi,
I'm happy to help! If you're on Skype send me your user name via direct message here and we'll touch base.

If you don't want to wait, all you need to do in XSitePro is choose the site you want to use for the redirect, click the OTHER tab and then click on REDIRECT PAGES (should be in the right column). Then click ADD and you're ready to go.

We'll use my NAMS redirect as an example.

First go under the section for page name type in the name you want it to be, all lower case. (mine for NAMS is nams). As you type it in, you'll see at the bottom the words "The URL for this page will be... so you can see exactly what it will look like. If it's going to be longer than one word, use the dash - between each word. Mine says http://www.angienewton.com/nams.html so yours will look similar (not sure if you're using the .html though)

Keep redirect delay at 0 seconds

Then plug in your long ugly affiliate link below that where it says redirect url.

There is a section for notes if you need to remember anything about that particular redirect. And under that you'll see what looks like a website page...just leave that blank.

Click OK, SAVE then Publish! You're done! Then you can test it out.

Thanks Angie.
This is my problem. Currently when I upload my redirects the old fashioned way they go in a folder called 'books', so they are www.packabook.com/books/xxxxx.html How do I get these ones to go in this same folder? Or is it a completely different thing from they way I have been doing it and I just have to live with them going to a different place...?

Sorry Steve for hijacking your post!

[Steve_gts]

No probs Suzi.

I've decided to use prettylinks, it's really simple and gives me the option of upgrading later without the need to change the plugin, or have to reconfigure all the links, so I've got all I need from it already. Thanks all for your input.

[Isobel]

A warning about PrettyLink. I'm a member of Bring The Fresh and there are several posts on the forum there complaining that the affiliate tag frequently gets dropped from the free version of PrettyLink or that clicks don't get tracked properly. A tech-savvy friend of mine checked it out carefully and was very sure that some of her links weren't carrying the cookie through to the sales page. Recommended options are Go Pages (http://gopages.jvpress.com/) or Simple URLs (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-urls)

[Infinity]

Oh man! If that's true then I'm losing thousands upon thousands of dollars in affiliate commissions :O

Do you know if Go Pages or Simple URL allow you to import your URLs from Pretty Link?

Because I have hundreds of them, so it would be no easy feat for me to change them all one by one...

[Infinity]

Also, do you know if pretty link pro has this same problem?

If it doesn't perhaps I should just upgrade to pro, because it's hard for me to transfer so many links at once...

[Isobel]

I'm sorry, I don't know if there's an import facility. As for whether it applies to the pro version, I've never used it. All I can tell you is that PrettyLink, free or pro, is no longer recommended in BTF literature and videos because of this issue and that when you search the BTF forum you turn up a fair number of threads about problems with PL. The "word" (i.e. rumour) is that the reason the developer removed the cloaking option is because he was aware of the problem.

[Infinity]

Thanks for the info Isobel. :)

I'll move all my redirect links to another plugin today.

Well, I guess I shouldn't have been using a free plugin in the first place.. lol. :P