Linking to Affiliates. Best Method?

[jvanv8]

What is the consensus on linking to affiliate websites?
Currently I have a page that handles all redirects such as
go.php?site_id=123

which has the code:

<script language="javascript"> 
 window.location.href=("http://thewebsitefor123.com"); 
</script> 

Is this good practice? Will the javascript redirect show that my site is the referrer or will it state that there is no referrer? Is a php header location redirect better? Or should I do a 301 or 302 redirect?

_blank or _self?
Currently I am opening the go.php page in the same window (_self) but am wondering if _blank might be better in case the user doesn't find what they are looking for on the affiliate site. Does "_blank" get blocked by some pop up blockers?

[jimbeetle]

Do you mean linking to the program sponsor's site? If so, why not just a straight link instead of jumping through hoops?

[koncept]

Why not? Because affiliates are often advised to "hide" their affiliate links from the search engines, especially if they are advertising their site via PPC.

So does anyone have recommendations on the best method of "hiding" affiliate links? Do any of these methods really work?

L.

[ronin]

Server-side redirection on an Apache server using an .htaccess file is a pretty nifty solution.

[ildarius]

Koncept- Why are we advised to hide our affiliate links?

Ronin- Does it perserve the Http header info?

[ronin]

Honestly, that's too technical for me, ildarius, I can't understand the question. I'm sure someone else here can help.

[ildarius]

i mean when it's redirected and the merchant is looking at the traffic source, does he see the Http header?

[jimbeetle]

So does anyone have recommendations on the best method of "hiding" affiliate links?

The original poster's question wasn't the best way to hide affiliate links, but the best method to use for affiliate links. The OP then went on to ask if the given example was "good practice."

My experience has been that if I have to hide affiliate links I'm probably doing something wrong in the first place. It's then a better and more profitable use of my time to fix the underlying problems than resort to workarounds that the SEs can easily suss out in the first place.

[ronin]

ildarius> Oh, I see - yes, using .htaccess redirects means the server at the other end will correctly identify the referring site.

[pjesse]

I stopped using redirects. I have a google site map and one of googles concerns was using redirects.

PJ

[mfishy]

Not to be a jerk, but dude, use Google. There must be 10,000 pages with these answers.

[purplecape]

"There must be 10,000 pages with these answers. "

So how does he know which answer to trust? Makes sense to ask here.

[Marcia]

Here's good enough reason to redirect the links with a jump script.

[webmasterworld.com...]

When the engine indexes the tracking URL instead of the page it's on, the page is history in the index.