Kumiko's Cash Quest

Hidden Cash! Hide Your Affiliate Links Like A Pro

Do you want to make money online like a pro? You need to hide your affiliate links!

Even those who have just a basic knowledge of affiliate marketing know an affiliate link when they see one - they’re the links that end in ?ref=affiliateid or a variation of that. A sad fact of life is that there are a lot of people out there who don’t want you to make money online and won’t use these links to sign up under you. These people will simply go directly to the sites without clicking your link which means you miss out on the cash!

So hide the links like a pro!

I originally came across this technique at Mr Chow’s site but it wasn’t until I switched to Wordpress that I was able to fully implement it. And now I’ve found a way to take it to the next level!

The PHP redirect

For this technique, you’ll need to be running PHP on your server but once that’s up and running it’s super easy to hide your affiliate links:

All you have to do is create a file in notepad called (for example) makemoney.php and then type in the file:

<?
header(”Location: http://www.cashquests.com/?ref=cashid984?);
?>

Of course, replace the URL with your affiliate link. Upload the file to your server and any links to the makemoney.php file will automatically redirect to the affiliate link. Super secret and super easy!

The next level

While the previous technique is widely used, there’s a tiny tweak that takes it to the next level and increases your earnings dramatically! All you have to do is create a directory on your server called “recommended” or “myrecommendations” and upload your .php files to this directory. The end result is that any affiliate link will show up in a browser as: http://www.cashquests.com/recommended/textlinkads.php

Doing this adds just a little bit more “trust” to the link as it appears that you honestly believe in the program enough to place it in your “recommended” directory.

A small tweak, but I’ve found that the word “recommended” really stands out in a link and dramatically increases your click through rate.

Turn pro

The above tweaks are quite basic and used by a lot of bloggers so it’s quite easy to see them in action and spot affiliate links. If you want to be a “bling-bling blogger” and make a fortune through affiliate sales, hide your affiliate links even further by registering a separate domain for each affiliate program.

Instead of linking to affiliate links, you’ll link to the new domain which redirects to the affiliate link!

For example, if you wanted to promote the Text Link Ads affiliate program you could create sellyourlinks.com and have that domain redirect to the affiliate program. When you link to sellyourlinks.com from your site, it is impossible for your visitors on your site to know that they are clicking an affiliate link.

The less people feel you are pushing, the more likely they are to buy!

Fun with new visitors

While the .php technique obviously won’t work with those who know about it (I rarely click a .php link), it’s an easy way to earn money from non-marketers and those who haven’t reached this level of strategy yet! The domain redirect is rock-solid as it’s impossible to spot whether it is an affiliate link or not until it has been clicked. Hide your links if it’s cash you seek!