Redirects of affiliate links

**jarvi** · 14 June 2011, 8:25 am

I have a couple of WordPress plugins that I use for redirecting affiliate links. One uses a 301 redirect and one uses a 302 redirect. Is one better than the other for this purpose?

**casinoplanet** · 14 June 2011, 9:56 am

I'm not familiar with WP, but I use a php redirect script, which works great.

The link looks like this: www.mysite.com/click?s=casino. When someone clicks the link, it first leads to the php script, looks for the aff.code you have linked to "casino" in the php file and redirects to your aff.casino site.

**FictionNet** · 14 June 2011, 11:55 am

Yeah, I use a php redirect script too and it's VERY easy to use (even I have no problems). If you'd like help setting this up, let me know - it'll take two minutes.

**jarvi** · 14 June 2011, 12:39 pm

Thanks, however I might not have been clear. I've been using different versions of redirects for a while now and the WordPress plugins make it even easier than the few php solutions I have used on my non-WP sites.

What I'm trying to find out is whether it's better to do it via a 301 or 302 redirect to keep the search engines happy whilst still achieving the masking of the affiliate links.

**GaryTheScubaGuy** · 15 June 2011, 12:18 am

3 pieces of Affiliate SEO advice

1. Use Bit.ly to eliminate the aff= or other affiliate identifying links (both for google and savvy end-users) - you can also add your keywords into the url
2. Add a nofollow to the link to avoid leaking page rank
3. Don't use 302's as they are the preferred method for highjacking and left in place may draw a penalty. (Use a 301 or canonical rel tag)

**jarvi** · 15 June 2011, 12:28 am

Perfect. Exactly what I needed to know. Time to swap from the old plugin to the newer one... Thanks.

**Frank Benjamin** · 15 June 2011, 7:44 am

I use a html page that redirects the page that looks like this:

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<title>Loading...</title>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="0;URL=https://affiliatedsportsbook.com/">
</HEAD>
</HTML>

Is this bad. It is nice because I have a link on my site that looks like mydomain.net/sportsbook-bonuses/sportsbookname.html.

**FictionNet** · 15 June 2011, 9:07 am

That's what I used to use, Sports Investor. Yeah, it worked fine for me. I'd heard various horror stories about using META refresh to redirect links but nothing yucky ever happened to my sites and I'd still be using it now if I hadn't been shown the php method instead. I use the php redirects now as it involves just one file (the php file) rather than tens or hundreds of files (one file/html page for every outgoing link).

**Frank Benjamin** · 15 June 2011, 9:18 am

So what is the php solution? Care to share. Feel free to PM me...I am not meaning to hijack Jarvi's thread.

**FictionNet** · 15 June 2011, 10:46 am

Do you use MSN IM? If so, hit me up at [email protected] and I can explain it easily. If you don't use MSN, lemme know your e-mail addy and I'll send the file as an attachment with a brief outline of how to use it.

**lunaraurora** · 15 June 2011, 5:04 pm

I changed recenly all php redirect to meta refresh ..is seems that programs like xenu and spiders (like googlebot) detect fewer errors during the scanning process.. but I'm not 100% sure of what I'm saying

What you think Gary?

**MichaelCorfman** · 15 June 2011, 5:43 pm

Originally Posted by GaryTheScubaGuy

3 pieces of Affiliate SEO advice

1. Use Bit.ly to eliminate the aff= or other affiliate identifying links (both for google and savvy end-users) - you can also add your keywords into the url
2. Add a nofollow to the link to avoid leaking page rank
3. Don't use 302's as they are the preferred method for highjacking and left in place may draw a penalty. (Use a 301 or canonical rel tag)

I think Gary's advise is right-on here. We do something slightly different, but I think with the same objective on our sites:

1. We don't have any affiliate links on our sites. Rather, we have links to an internal script of our own that tracks the external click and then redirects with an appropriate affiliate link (also makes it easy to change the external links and tracking codes without changing any pages on our site or change the URL if a site suddenly changes the domain it uses as has happened for a few sites lately).
2. The links to the internal script all have nofollow specified.
3. The internal script is located in a folder which has a robots.txt spider exclusion specified just to make extra sure google does not track where the links end up.

**xecutable** · 15 June 2011, 7:17 pm

I used to use the php code:

Code:

<?php 
header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
header("Location: https://www.example.com"); 
?>

Since I am using wordpress however, a small plugin called Simple Link Cloaker, does the job for me via writing in the .htaccess file. I use the cloaks for "pretty links" purposes rather than injects and security reasons.

It's not perfect, but as for now it does the job.

From what I've read, there's no significant difference between 301 and 302 in terms of how Google reads those. I was trying to find out if it affects somehow the serps and stuff, and all I found is "Don't worry about it". So there I am no worrying about it

**GaryTheScubaGuy** · 16 June 2011, 12:07 am

302's redirecting to another onsite page is okay, although I can't see the purpose.

Redirecting an affiliate link is a perfect example of one step in the process of essentially what amounts to potential 302 hijacking in Google's eyes. It always has been.

Here is how they work;
https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-ad...302-redirects/

It is still an existing problem;
https://www.google.com/support/forum/...744a700a&hl=en

**GaryTheScubaGuy** · 16 June 2011, 12:23 am

Additional important issues with 301/302's on an Affiliate portal that are a bit unrelated;

301 will pass page rank
302 will not pass PR

301/302 redirects for Affiliate Links;
If you are using 301 redirects, make sure they preserve your tracking parameters (utm_source, etc., at the end of your destination URL). More often than not, parameters that may specify display, email, or paid search campaigns may be stripped. The URL of the referring site becomes a referrer and your campaign information is lost.

302 redirects give only temporary link credit to your long links. This tells search engines that the more powerful and important link is the shortened one, not yours! Here are some URL shorteners that use this 302 redirect: Hex.io, twurl.in, and eweri.

TinyURL and a few other use 301's. Check it with an HTTP viewer;
https://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html

**GaryTheScubaGuy** · 16 June 2011, 12:39 am

Originally Posted by lunaraurora

What you think Gary?

Hi Laura,

The difference between a PhP Redirect and a Meta Refresh is that a redirect can still log referrer information. What this means is that your Affiliate Managers can see exactly where your traffic is coming from. A redirect simply *redirects* thru one of your domains and can still display information that will let people know who are looking, where you been sending your links.

A smart way to hide your referrer information is to use a the Meta Refresh. Here’s the code:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "https://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns=" https://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="0;URL=AFFILIATE URL HERE">
<title>SITE TITLE HERE</title>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>

Load this into a text file and name it whatever you want with a .html extension.

**johnbenjamin** · 16 June 2011, 2:28 am

Originally Posted by jarvi

I have a couple of WordPress plugins that I use for redirecting affiliate links. One uses a 301 redirect and one uses a 302 redirect. Is one better than the other for this purpose?

Since you mentioned WP, check out GoCodes. It makes use of 301 redirects and you can set it to a link within your domain, ex: mydomain.com/track/name

Where track is the identifier and name is anything that you give. Put in your aff link there and job done. Another great advantage being that you can just use one interface to change your aff. links.

**EugeneK** · 16 June 2011, 11:11 am

it is possible make outgoing links with /track/link-1/
add Disalllow /track/ to robots.txt and in track folder put .htacess file where you should write all necessary redirects

fast, cheap and fretfully

**GaryTheScubaGuy** · 16 June 2011, 1:39 pm

If you set up your robots.txt file up correctly and do not link to the unwanted indexed pages without adding nofollows, this is all you should need to do.

**mobileslot4u** · 16 June 2011, 3:00 pm

I wouldn't worry too much about 'leaking PageRank' and using nofollows.

By the way, if you use Google Analytics, you can use Event Tracking to see how many outbound clicks you're getting.

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