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February 28, 2007
Prompted by an article Michael Fortin published on his blog, I've decided to post a series of articles detailing the code behind some of the redirects and "tricks" that I use with Clickbank. A lot of these are applicable to other payment processors/affiliate programs was well. Protect your Internet business by using these techniques.
In this first article, I'll give some examples of cloaking your affiliate link using server side redirects. Why would you want to do this? There are two reasons:
1) Because there are cheaters out there that have a Clickbank account and will purchase the product you're promoting by looking at your purchase link and getting the Clickbank Nickname of the vendor. Then they will build a link to put themselves in as the affiliate, thereby getting your commission and getting the product for less, because they've stolen your commission, and
2) Because you can use redirects to shorten the length of the purchase link and shorter links are generally more desirable.
What is required to do this? You need a web hosting account that supports PHP or ASP.
Is it hard or complicated? No...
You need to make a simple script or web page and put the code from the examples below in it. You want to put this file in its own subdirectory or folder under your web site's root directory. If you're using PHP, you want to name it index.php, or default.php - whichever is the default page name for your server. If you're using ASP, name it index.asp or default.asp. Using this name (the default page name) will cause this page to load by just specifying the directory, for example: http://www.pqInternet.com/muvar will cause the index.asp page in the muvar subdirectory to load automatically, you don't have to specify the index.asp.
What do I use to edit and/or create the file? You can use a simple text editor like Notepad that comes with Windows. I recommend a free tool call Notepad Plus that's a real code editor. You can download it from here: http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm.
Clickbank Hop Links: ClickBank uses a link called a hop link. When your potential customer clicks on your hoplink, they are sent to the vendor or publisher's sales page. A cookie is created that associates your affiliate ID with the product, so if they make a purchase, you receive a commission payment. A hotlink is formed by using the syntax (code structure) below.
This is what a hoplink looks like:
http://[Your ClickBank Nickname].[Affiliate Product Publisher].hop.clickbank.net
Replace "[Your ClickBank Nickname]" with YOUR CLICKBANK NICKNAME.
Replace "[Affiliate Product Pubisher]" with the Affiliate Product that you're promoting.
Example: http://PhaseQuest.Muvar.hop.clickbank.net will sell Muvar with PhaseQuest as the affiliate. In other words, I'll make a commission from the sale.
What do I put in the file:
For PHP:
For ASP:
Ok, I've made the file, what now? You need to use whatever method you use with your hosting provider to upload the file to your web site, into a new subdirectory.
In the above example using Muvar, I made a subdirectory named muvar under my main site and copied my index.asp file to it. So my affiliate link for Muvar is http://www.pqInternet.com/Muvar. It's in the right column under recommended products.
If you found this helpful, but a little confusing, you can watch and listen to this and more in my online home study course: Making Money Online.
Until Next time... when I'll talk about using your own sales page and linking directly to the Clickbank purchase page, skipping the vendors own sales page.
Fred
About the Author
Fred Black is an experienced programmer, web site developer, online business operator, systems integrator, father, husband, musician, and songwriter. Visit his Internet Business Blog at: http://www.pqInternet.com.
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Posted by Fred on February 28, 2007 | Printer-Friendly
TrackBack: http://www.pqInternet.com/Blog/mt-tb.cgi/25
Assigned Categories:
ClickBank
| Web Site Design, HTML, CSS
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Comments:
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I'm very interested in knowing how a person can copy the source code from an affiliate product page so text links can be added for linking campaigns but still be functional and hide my clickbank hop link URL from being seen anywhere.
Could you answer this question for me.
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From Fred...
