New, How to mirror & include affiliate referral

[LukeJ]

I'm completely new to online advertising and was hoping to start learning by using affiliate referral sites. After reading several posts about long time adwords users getting banned, im a little concerned, but i still want to give it a try.

I was hoping someone could tell me, (or tell me what forum topic to post this under):

Most affiliate pages I've looked at seemed to be a mirrored version of the original website. This appears to be more legitimate than just using an automatic redirect (which i know adwords doesnt allow).

But what i'm wondering is how to still embed the affiliate referral ID into the mirrored website so that when someone clicks their way to the final order page (which loads through the legitimate vendor's hosting service) I can still get the referral.

I assume that is clear to anyone that knows the answer, but my example is below:

If an affiliate service gives you a generated link including your referral id .com/id?abc123

Which if you click it loads you to the affiliate site.

I can mirror and host the site, but since that referral link is not clicked to take the user there, some cookie does not get my ID in it and I don't get the referral.

How do I change that?

[edited by: mack at 9:34 am (utc) on Dec. 10, 2009]
[edit reason] removed specifics [/edit]

[mack]

I agree about not simply redirecting the user to the sales page. What you suggest about mirroring the companies site is a slightly better idea, but you will need to find out if they allow this. They may not due to copyright restrictions.

My suggestion. Build a site from scratch. Use your own layout, use the companies product images if you're allowed but create your own content. You have a much greater chance of ranking if your content is unique.

You can then place your affiliate id within the links that take the user to the sales page.

Hope this helps.

Mack.

[LukeJ]

"You can then place your affiliate id within the links that take the user to the sales page"

That is what I am asking how to do. The site I am using already has several mirrored versions of itself. I want to do the same. I'm wanting to know how to use my webpage to create/refresh a cookie or something else that contains my affiliate ID.

What thread might I post on to get help for that?