Forum Moderators: skibum
And it would be better combining this whith a scrolling text in the status bar. It disables more or less showing the affiliate code with a right click on the mouse.
Here is the scrolling text script:
<Script LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!-- Hide this from older browsers
var Count = 0;
var Text = "This is the line that you edit.";
var Speed = 90;
var timerID = null;
var TimerRunning = false;
var i = 0;
while (i ++ < 140)
Text = " " + Text;
function Scroll(){
window.status = Text.substring(Count++, Text.length);
if (Count == Text.length)
Count = 0;
timerID = setTimeout("Scroll()", Speed);
TimerRunning = true;
}
function Start(){
Stop();
Scroll();
}
function Stop(){
if(TimerRunning)
clearTimeout(timerID);
TimerRunning = false;
}
Start();
// end hide -->
</Script>
That said, I would be far mroe trusting if the site in it's surrounding text around the link, let me know i was going somehwere else, or somwhere else where i will be asked to buy something.
Why the obfuscation? An is it really worth it?
It may work for sites that dont rely on repeat visitors, and for certain groups of people, but Im not sure its helpful for your site's navigation in either case.
It may be wise to survey this, anything that is a browser attribute really does belong to the person using the browser.
>is it really worth it? <
It is nice to get some better click statistics.
The site in question doesn't generate that much traffic so it is easy to manually backtrack from the clicktrough to the entry page (w. full referer information like search phrase).
Anyway, if sales drop because of this change, it is easy for me to change back to full affiliate link.
Personally a prefer the following:
Make a seperate page for each affiliate. Link to that page which you redirect to your affiliate url. Or better, manage a permanent redirect of that page via your control panel of your host.
This way your visitor will access the site via the url of your choice, leaving some information which giving you your referral.
Gimme a visitor who knows what she/he wants, has credit card in hand and is ready to buy. Now there's a person who could care less about whether there's an affiliate involved. The timid are lousy prospects.
And, Buckworks, you're absolutely right. Strip that page down! Use CSS. Bare bones works best.
Afflilate link masking will only increase page size/loading time....not worth it
It may be a matter if you are selling stuff to other webmasters ( like marketing ebooks or in multi tier aff programs)
http://domain.tld/link/*
were redirected to *.
then suddenly google listed the foreign pages under!that! url. i think this might be interesting for am stuff, too, having your affiliates listed on google. rofl. ;)
Not with a redirect as I do. With the extra benefit of having your affiliate links listed in the search engines.
>>It may be a matter if you are selling stuff to other webmasters ( like marketing ebooks or in multi tier aff programs)
Agree with that. I use the trick only for that purpose.
Will those pass pr on to the landing page?
I'm not sure if the redirects pass pr, but doing this could increase the probability of getting listed on DMOZ, and therefore improving pr.
From what I've read on this subject; Adware (scumware) pop-up/pop-under ads can (if installed on the shoppers computer) show itself on certain keywords and remove your affiliate id (cookie) and replace it with theirs, thereby cheating you out of a commission. I've read up to 60% of commissions can be lost. I don't know how accurate that number is but I believe you can lose a lot more from Adware then from the odd shopper deleting the affiliate id from the location bar.
JMHO,
Ellen
P.S.
I'm brand new to WebmasterWorld and I have to say I am very impressed with the information and advice offered. Thanks :)
I'm not sure that the redirect effectively thwarts adware, as least the way I do it (.htaccess redirects) ultimately goes through the affiliate link, so I would think the adware could detect it at that point.
Shawn
Ellen
Do you think a basic frame would be effective as well?
Shawn
One of these vendors told me that there found a significant rise in click thorughs when affiliates use the "clean" URL. It could be that some surfers find recommendations with "clean" URLs to be more objective or "serious" than the ones with affiliate codes.
So what then?
You might want to try php.
You need to create a page order.php and paste the following code in it:
<!-- Begin Code -->
<?php
switch($_GET['id'])
{
case('1'):
$location = 'http://www.affiliatesite1.com/?affiliateid=xxxx';
break;
case('2'):
$location = 'http://www.affiliatesite2.com/?affiliateid=xxxx';
break;
default:
echo 'Error: No ID Specified';
exit;
break;
}
header('Location: ' . $location);
?>
<!-- End Code -->
Then pass the id supplied above to the affiliate links:
http://www.widgets.com/order.php?id=1
http://www.widgets.com/order.php?id=2
Hope this helps,
Istvan
If the problem is hiding an affiliate link or two to avoid losing the referral, and whereas I agree with others that in most cases it isn't worth the trouble, there's no problems at all in getting a listing in DMOZ for sites with unique, relevant content.
If hiding affiliate links is used a the only possible trick to get a DMOZ listing for sites who are made of only, or mainly, affiliate links, or are just lead generators for the merchant sites they link to, this might increase the probability of getting listed by an inexperienced editor first time, and maybe stay there for some time, but can get you banned eventually when discovered (a quick navigation in the target site/s may often reveal the real purpose of the link/s).
If you are a member of Commission Junction, you can select "hide tracking code" when getting links and it automatically appends the 'on mouseover' to show the main URL for the advertiser's site instead of the tracking server.
Example:
www.towerrecords.com instead of http://qksrv.net/click-34553-34535 (this is not a real link)
I hope this helps,
Todd
There's a great deal you can contribute to aid serious webmasters operating as affiliates. And, I think you'll find that you and CJ will learn and benefit in the bargain.
FYI - I try to stay aaway from answering general customer support type questions and stick to observing (and learning) and commenting when necessary to shed insight or clarify things.
Todd
