Affiliate Links: Manage Them, Track Them, Earn More From Them
You know you want to make more affiliate sales on your site. You know what products you’ll be promoting. You’re ready to place the links. But wait! Before you place an affiliate link on your site, consider a few things first.
Problems with Typical Affiliate Links
The typical affiliate link comes with its share of problems in most cases, so let’s take a look at what some of those problems might be.
- An affiliate link is often long and ugly, which makes it difficult to share on social networks.
- Some people routinely avoid clicking on an affiliate link when they see one.
- Some people replace your affiliate id with their own.
- It can be difficult to track the conversion rate of the link, with no tracking mechanism in place.
- It can be difficult to determine if your affiliate company or network is honestly reporting the number of referrals you send, with no tracking mechanism in place.
- Some affiliate links may cause you to be fingerprinted as a thin affiliate by search engines, even if you aren’t.
- Affiliate offers very often are temporary and need to be updated or replaced with new offers. It can be difficult to update those links across many pages of your site(s).
Blueprint: How To Avoid Ugly Affiliate Links
There are numerous ways to solve some or all of the problems listed above, but the most common method is to do a simple URL redirect. Some people use URL shorteners (such as tinyurl or bit.ly), but those links can sometimes make people wary of clicking, since they have an in-built distrust of commonly known shortened links. I often use my own custom URL shortener script that I placed on my own domain, which resolves that problem to some extent. Most people use some form of jump script that first sends the click to a script on your own site (often in a folder called “go” or “jump” or “recommends”), and then sends them on to the final destination. So, a typical jump script link would look something like this: “http://www.yoursite.com/go/coolproduct” .
There are lots of ways to handle redirects, including via .htaccess or php code, but while the concept isn’t all that difficult (especially for anyone who is code-comfortable), it can be very tedious, and may only solve some but not all of the problems listed above. Let’s face it; if you have a blog with 1000 posts and you want to go back and convert every “cool product” phrase with a jumpscripted affiliate link to that cool product, the task will take a while. Multiply that task by the number of products you’re promoting, and that tedious task suddenly feels impossible to do. And then what happens when you need to change every link that promotes a product that no longer exists?
Of course, this is where the right tool comes in handy. There are tools, scripts, and plugins to handle this kind of thing auto-magically. Some do just this one thing and do it well. Others include this feature as part of a larger set of features. Which tool someone uses is dependent upon the individual need, but I like to recommend tools that will likely be the most useful to the most people in the most situations. I may even recommend one tool one day and another tool on another day, because both are good for different situations.
Using .htaccess to Redirect Affiliate Links
Pros:
- Free
Cons:
- Scary for non-techy people.
- Can be dangerous – if done incorrectly, a messed-up htaccess file can make your site inaccessible or not work the way it used to.
- Not all hosting accounts allow editing of htaccess files.
- Doesn’t give you stats to track clicks.
If you want to use .htaccess to handle this, here’s how:
First, back up your current .htaccess file!
Next, edit the file and add the following lines:
# Begin affiliate redirects
Redirect 301 /shortname1 http://affiliate-link-example1.com/?id=12345
Redirect 301 /shortname2 http://affiliate-link-example2.com/?id=34567
# End of affiliate redirects
Now replace /shortname with whatever short name you want to give each affiliate link, and replace http://example.com/?id=12345 with the actual affiliate link you want to send your visitors to when they click the link. Add as many of these as you need to handle all your links.
How To Turn Affiliate Links into Ninja Links (WordPress Plugin only)
If you use WordPress, and you’d rather use a tool that isn’t scary, that handles ALL of the problems associated with affiliate links, then I’d recommend using an excellent tool called Ninja Affiliate. Why?
Pros:
- See all the Pros listed below.
Cons:
- Not free
- For self-hosted WordPress blogs only (although you can use the shortened links anywhere, such as Twitter, emails, newsletter, forums, etc)
Reasons Why Ninja Affiliate Will Solve All Your Affiliate Link Issues
- Short Memorable Links – You can easily give each affiliate link a short url with a memorable name.
- You and your users can more easily share the links via email or Twitter.
- Users won’t automatically ignore the links.
- Users won’t steal your commissions by switching their affiliate ID for yours.
- Flexible Link Formats – Different affiliate companies and networks use different link formats, which can be a real pain to handle in some other products (sometimes impossible). But Ninja Affiliate can handle them all.
- Organize Links Into Groups – I love this. Organize all your affiliate links into whatever groups you want, so you can more easily manage them.
- Easily Select Links From WP Post Editor – When writing a new blog post in WordPress, add an affiliate link on the fly by selecting from a drop-down list right there within the WP editor.
- Automatically Transform Keywords to Links – This is special. Choose words or phrases throughout your blog to be automatically linked to an affiliate product. Even better: You can limit it to autolink just a few phrases on each page, so you don’t turn your blog into a spamfest.
- Option To “No-Follow” The Links – I always try to remember to add nofollow to affilate links (though sometimes I forget), so that Google has nothing to complain about. This plugin can automatically add nofollow so you won’t forget.
What To Look For In An Affiliate Link Management Tool
- Ability to shorten and redirect long, ugly affiliate links and create short, memorable, easily-sharable links like http://www.yoursite.com/coolproduct.
- Group and manage all your affiliate links in one central place.
- Easily change an old affiliate offer to a new, updated offer, or replace one affilate product for another, by simply changing one thing, but affecting all the links you’ve placed everywhere.
- Be able to track click stats so you can determine which offers work best, and from where (blogs, forums, Twitter, etc.).
- Be able to track impressions and clicks so you can make sure your affiliate networks are being honest with you.
- Prevent users from blindly and routinely avoiding clicking on affiliate links.
- Stop users from stealing your commissions by not giving them the opportunity to swap their affiliate ID for yours.
- Automatically convert keywords throughout your blog (yes, even all your old blog posts) into affiliate links – AND limit how many get converted so you don’t turn your blog into a spammy mess.
- Avoid giving search engines the wrong impression that you are a thin affiliate, when you aren’t!
- Free upgrades
What To Do If You Aren’t Using A WordPress Blog
I don’t know of any one product that is as comprehensive as Ninja Affiliate for non-WP sites. I can suggest some less than perfect solutions, however.
- Use a 3rd-party URL Shortener such as bit.ly. As I mentioned earlier, 3rd-party shorteners aren’t always trusted by users. In addition, a 3rd-party shortener could go out of business one day, leaving you with a bazillion affiliate links that no longer work. (It’s happened several times in the recent past, in fact, and I was bitten by this problem once. I’ll never let that happen again).
- Roll your own URL Shortener with a script such as YOURLS (free). YOURLS is a good script, and it’s pretty cool, but it may be a little techy for some.
- Code your own comprehensive system, or hire someone to code it for you. In other words, spend the time and money to clone Ninja Affiliate for non-WordPress blogs.
Related Posts:
Monetizing A Site via Affiliate Sales – An Introduction | DazzlinDonna
Disclosure: Affiliate links may be used within this post for products I recommend. They in no way affect my judgement of said products, nor do they affect the price of the product.
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Tags: .htaccess, affiliate sales on your site, URL shortening
| Affiliate Links: Manage Them, Track Them, Earn More From Them | |
 | You know you want to make more affiliate sales on your site. You know what products you’ll be promoting. You’re ready to place the links. But wait! Before you place an affiliate link on your site, consider a few things first. Problems with Typical Affiliate Links The typical affiliate link comes with its share of [...] |
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I am welling to put Ninja Affiliate on my plans, I really like to use it!
Thanks for the very information post Donna! Iliane recommended your post so I came to visit
A comprehensive post on the ways to mask an affiliate link. This is a subject I have written about link masking quite a few times on my site and have found that these articles are always popular; there seems to be a lot of people looking for solutions.
One thing I always look for when using a affiliate link management tool is the addition of click tracking as this info can really help tweak a campaign and measure its effectiveness.
Ninja affiliate a cool plugin for sure.
Regards,
Karl
HOW do you change the older posts with Ninja?
Ninja does it for you when you tell it which words/phrases to replace with a link. One change in settings and it’s done.
Hello. This is kind of an “unconventional” question , but have other visitors asked you how get the menu bar to look like you’ve got it? I also have a blog and am really looking to alter around the theme, however am scared to death to mess with it for fear of the search engines punishing me. I am very new to all of this …so i am just not positive exactly how to try to to it all yet. I’ll just keep working on it one day at a time Thanks for any help you can offer here.
If you mean the top menu, with the hover effects, you should be able to find plenty of CSS tutorials for that kind of look. One place you can play with various CSS menus is http://www.cssmenumaker.com/horizontal_css_menu.php
If you mean the bottom toolbar, that’s a wibiya.com script, so you could easily add one by signing up with them.
Hi Donna,
I actually purchased Ninja Affiliate recently, and I’m wondering if you’re running into the same problem I am with it.
I installed the plugin and everything went smoothly until I got to the point of editing a Page in my WordPress blog. When I go to edit a Page, the Visual editor in WordPress disappears. If I de-activate the plugin, the Visual editor re-appears.
Let me know if you have a workaround for this – I’m dying to start using this tool !!
thx
shawn
I haven’t run into that, no, but then again I never use the Visual editor. I wonder if there’s a conflict with plugins. I’d recommend contacting the NA team, but in the meantime, I’ll see if I can find an answer for you.
Hmmm… well, I’m no coder, so I thought the ability to use a drop-down box to insert the “Ninja links” would make this process easy for me. If I can’t use the Visual Editor, do I have to manually insert the affiliate link code?
Can you give me a quick example of how to do that if I’m using a CJ link? Sorry for the noob question
Shawn, I think you should log onto MaxBlogPress’s support forum or email those guys. Those guys are far more capable of solving this for you than I am. I think it’s pretty important for you to be able to use the drop-down box, so that needs to get fixed for you. You get free support with the purchase of it, so make ‘em work for their money. LOL.
Seriously, though, I’d just be guessing if I tried to help. They are the experts.
Yeah – I tried that but got no response… maybe it just takes a few days for them to figure these things out.
Thanks again
Bah, I hate not getting a response from someone. Keep bugging them. In the meantime, do you have any plugins running that also affect the editor? Maybe disable that, and see if it makes things work again. At least then you’d know if there’s a conflict or not. Also, try in a different browser. That seems to fix a lot of weird problems for me.
Hi Shawn,
We’ve received you support ticket if you’ve submitted it by the name of John Flynn. We always respond and help our users. We couldn’t reply your ticket yesterday because yesterday was Saturday. We’re looking into your problem and will solve it asap.
Thanks
Hi Donna,
There is this url shortener called budurl which can track ur aff. links besides cloaking them. I’ve been using this for my nonWP blogs, does a good job being free.
Thanks
Vinod Kumar Jadge recently posted..Effectively Using Words In Search Optimisation Marketing Techniques
Good to know!
Twitter: DonnaFontenot
I once had soem trouble with the
Redirect 302 /shortname1 http://affiliate-link-example1.com/?id=12345
method, google somehow picked these up and recognised them as redirects from “my pages”, i.e. it thought shortname1 was a page, and labelled me a “thin affiliate” in breach of “bridge page” policy.
I am currently looking at the option of creating my own dedicated domain that will block all bots and be used to redirect.
But need some good up to date advice on if this is safe. Do you know if it is?
Jon recently posted..Google Cinema – Movie Search
It’s precisely your situation, Jon, that made me decide to change that 302 to a 301 above. I’m glad you reminded me of it. I can’t advise on whether or not it is safe. I’d guess only the search engines would know that for sure. I can say that I’ve seen that method in place for a long time, with no ill effects, but that doesn’t mean it would never be a problem.
Twitter: DonnaFontenot
Do you have any opinion of using URL shorteners? I was thinking of using my own one (need to create it first). Should be easy as there are plugins for the job, and I have my eye on a nice little 3 letter domain should I decide to go for it. Wish there was some solid advice on this somewhere – I live in fear of upsetting Google again, while also know that my current method of linking direct to the affiliate URL is far from ideal.
Honestly, I think it was the 302′s that got you. If you implement your own shortener with 301′s it should be fine. Or…at least…it won’t be the shortener getting you in trouble; it’ll be something else.
Twitter: DonnaFontenot
I will give it a whirl then. Maybe test on one page and see if it moves south.
Just to update you, I have installed Pretty Link on a new short domain (3 letter domain.im) and am using that. Seems OK. If I did end up with many links across the site, I could either change the URL in Pretty Link (wordpress plug) or delete the link on Pretty Link and create a new one, then use the Broken Link Tool on WP to change all links.
At the moment no change in search positions for the the first page I updated. Awaiting updates for the other page I have done.
Jon recently posted..10 Quick Weight Loss Tips for the Weekend