A lot of webmasters run affiliate links on their websites. I use Azoogle a lot, and when I put up their offers on my sites I just hate seeing their URLs. They often look something like this: http://x.azjmp.com/15StUb34FgCVtdsY?sub=lithman

How ugly!

And not only is it unappealing on the eye… seeing all those random numbers and letters in a URL… but visitors to your website will be turned off by it. Before they click a link that says “Free Razr Phone” or something, they will probably hover over it to see where the URL destination is. If you leave the original affiliate URL in there, some visitors won’t click it because it looks scammy.

You will notice on my blog, I have changed all the affiliate links to be more personalized. Now if you hover over that $1.99 Godaddy offer in my sidebar, instead of seeing the long ass affiliate link, you will see http://www.lithman.net/go/godaddy.php. Much more appealing isn’t it!

It is very simple to do this. First, create a directory in your root called “go” or “links”. You will then create new php files in that directory for every offer you have. So for the godaddy offer above, I created a new blank file in notepad and named it godaddy.php. The next step is to place a simple line of code in that php file.

<meta HTTP-EQUIV=”REFRESH” content=”0; http://www.youraffiliateurlgoeshere.com”>

That is it! Just enter that one line of code and be sure to add your affiliate link in it and click save. The new link will take the person to the php page you created and the code will automatically forward them to the affiliate link you entered. I encourage everyone to do this to their affiliate links.It makes your site look more professional and it makes your outbound links look more trustworthy.

If you still have problems getting this to work, shoot me an email or a comment and I’d be glad to help.