Link cloaking- How do I avoid a .php or .html extension?

[carmonkey]

Hi Folks, I'm a junior/basic coder (but a senior entrepeneur ) and I've exhausted about 100 articles on link cloaking. I've got both a php redirect and html redirect working so far (and getting close to the end of my technical abilities. I'd like to cloak my affiliate links to look like: mysite.com/affiliate

instead of mysite.com/affiliate.php or mysite.com/affiliate.html

So, I have two questions:

1. How can I do this? Does it need to be an .htaccess change in addition to one of the other redirects? If so, please be specific in what to code.

2. I have about 25 affiliate links. Is there an easy way (for someone mildly techicial) to put all the links in one file rather than managing 25 php or html redirect files?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Yes you can do all your redirects in one .htaccess file and each link will look like:
mysite.com/affiliate

Here's how:

Using .htaccess to Hide Affiliate Links | Click Consultants Affiliate Marketing Blog

How to hide affiliate links using htaccess

 

[carmonkey]

Thanks Linda!

If I use htaccess will I be penalized in the SE ranks at all? Also, can I (and should I) code my links with rel=nofollow and still use htacess?

Lastly, are there any downsides to this method? Like is it possible to track your own click-throughs (I read that you couldn't)?

 

[Linda Buquet]

If I use htaccess will I be penalized in the SE ranks at all? Also, can I (and should I) code my links with rel=nofollow and still use htacess?

I'm pretty sure there is no penalty htaccess is what most affiliates use.

Lastly, are there any downsides to this method? Like is it possible to track your own click-throughs (I read that you couldn't)?

No downside that I know of, but I don't think you can track clickthroughs with htaccess.

I use GoTryThis whitehat which is no longer available and I think was a one-time $47 or so. It uses htaccess but is a lot more automated and simplifies. It's very good and does click tracking with nice graphs so you can see which links are getting the most action.

Now GoTryThis does a lot more and is 14.95 a month.
I wouldn't go there right now if you don't have malware protection though.
When I just went there to check features and price a trojan tried to get me.

 

[djbaxter]

I wouldn't go there right now if you don't have malware protection though.
When I just went there to check features and price a trojan tried to get me.

Was it one of the USC Trojans?

 

[Linda Buquet]

No not that kind.

 

[carmonkey]

Linda, Thanks for the informative responses, sorry you got a trojan.

It sounds like htacess is definitely the way to go. I copied an interesting section of one of your links below that raises a few more questions:
___________________________
Hide affiliate url from search engines
Use robots.txt and add code below to exclude directory "hiddendir" from crawling:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /hiddendir/
Now, edit htaccess and add this line:

redirect 301 /hiddendir/somedir ttp://AffiliateUrl
Instead of "somedir" you can use somepage.html, to make url more natural.

Do not fill htaccess with too many links. Server is checking htaccess every time when there is some request, that is unnecessary delay. For more links you can use script redirection and database.
____________________________________________

If I have 25 affiliate redirects in my htacess file, do you think that is too many? Script redirection and a database sounds a little too complicated for my coding skills.

Also, do you think it is really necessary (or good practice) to update the robots file and use the "hidden" directory for all affiliate links as they suggest if using htacesss?

 

[carmonkey]

Linda (or others),

If using htacess for cloaking/redirects, do you find a higher click through% if you use .html or no extension for the link that is displayed to the user?

Example: domain/newsite.html versus domain/newsite

 

[schizoman]

Thanks Linda!

If I use htaccess will I be penalized in the SE ranks at all? Also, can I (and should I) code my links with rel=nofollow and still use htacess?

I actually read a report that concluded subfolders helped in SE ranking as much as or more than domain names. Thus, www.site.com/foobar/3 should be just about as good as www.foobar.com. (Don't know the author's methodology, sampling size, etc., so don't take this as gold.)

 

[rjl]

A even easier way to do this would be to create a directory and then name the redirect index.php/html .

That way when a user pulls up the directory it will auto goto the index.php/html and then redirect.

I use this method all the time for creating static sites.