Redirecting your affiliate links is one of the most important things you can learn and do when you start internet marketing.

There are 2 basic classes of redirecting your affiliate links.

1. Using a service on someone elses server
2. Using a script on your own server

Let’s look at option 1 for redirecting your affiliate links. You’ve probably heard of tinyurl.com ….which is a service that allows you to put in your affiliate link or long link and shorten it to something like www.tinyurl.com/23goher or something like that. These work fine for the short term. However, I believe in controlling every aspect of your internet marketing business that you can.  Let’s suppose you put out email, pdf’s, and multiple ebooks, multiple websites and webpages over a period of time, maybe 5 years. Let’s also suppose you used the tinyurl service…….What would happen if tinyurl service went down….! Guess what, you lose 5 years worth of seeding your affiliate links across the entire world wide web. You have absolutely no recourse because those links are dead….they don’t work and whatever you were promoting will never get promoted by your tinyurl links.

The upside of tinyurl is that it’s quick, easy and painless……but remember you are totally dependent on somone else keeing those links live.

Consider option number 2…..hosting your redirect script on your server.

The obvious big difference is that now you have control over your links. If the script breaks, you can fix it, if an affiliate program is dropped you can plug in a new affiliate program and you have the peace of mind that YOU are the one in control and as long as you host the script your affiliate links will stay live.

Now, there are numerous ways to take control over your own redirected affiliate links. The simplest is using a php redirect which I discuss and using a php redirect. There are some more advanced redirect direct and cloaking scripts available, some being free and some costing up to a 100 dollars or more.

I’ll skip the many redirect and cloaking scripts and tell you about a FREE script called Shorty that essentially does the same thing as tinyurl except you host it on your server and you can follow some statistics on which links are being clicked on.

Shorty can be installed on the main domain level as well as a folder or directory.

Download Shorty for free and start taking control of your links. As time permits you can invest in one of the more expensive redirect and cloaking. They ask for a donation….I always donate because someone has put some hard work into making the script work….however, it isn’t necessary.

When you get a little more experienced you might want to investigate a couple of redirect and cloaking scripts with more functions such as:

Phantom Link Cloaker

Secret Script

GoTryThis

Always, always, always redirect your affiliate links and keep them under your control!

If you’re really interested on link redirects and cloaking you can grab a free pdf on link cloaking.

Tags: shorty, cloaking links, phantom link cloaker, tinyurl, gotrythis, affiliate links, redirect links, secret script