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Can You Help Me 'Translate' This Reply From ClickBank?

by Diane S
8 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
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Hello Warriors,
Doing reserch one day I found a site that had the kind of ClickBank affiliate links I wish I knew how to create. The links look like this: hxxp://productnamereview.com/discount when you hover over the affiliate links at the site. Now that is beauty in my eyes, but I don't know how to create that. My hoplinks are all those horrible long things that look like a squirrel jumped across the keyboard.

I searched for the answer at ClickBank. I searched on the internet. I searched here. I don't find anything I can understand.

When I sent a message to ClickBank about it, here is what I got in return:

"In order to be able to guarantee your commissions, ClickBank does not recommend using third-party "link shortening" services such as "tinyurl" or other similar services.
While many affiliates do use such link shortening services in order to receive a shorter, more discreet link, we must inform you that ClickBank can only guarantee the tracking of HopLinks in the official ClickBank format. If you choose to use such a service, please be sure to regularly check that your HopLinks still function properly.
Since the referral of a sale needs to pass through our link in order for us to track the referral, we cannot guarantee that you will receive commission on links in another format. Our HopLinks are designed to be tracked by ClickBank, and other links may or may not allow you to collect those commissions.

If you would like to use a forwarding domain instead of a link hiding service, that would be fine. Just keep in mind that in order for your referrals to be properly tracked, your HopLinks must not be stored in a frame. When you created your domain name, if you set it to be "masked" rather than just forwarded, the HopLink will be stored in this manner, and therefore be unreliable.
Because of technology employed by ClickBank's order form, HopLinks stored in frames cannot be guaranteed to credit your account each time. Please remove the "masking" functionality from your domain if you have it set to mask your link rather than simply forward. You may set it to forward, but in order for you to properly receive credit, it will be necessary that you set your domain to just forward and not mask in a frame."

Okay, so I get that I should not use bit.ly. But what's all that about a Frame? Whatever are they talking about? I just want to know how to create the kind of affiliate link that other website has created.

I hope I gave enough detail so you could understand what I am trying to create. Thanks for your help.
#clickbank #reply #translate
  • Profile picture of the author mojojuju
    Originally Posted by Diane S View Post

    . But what's all that about a Frame? Whatever are they talking about?
    Clickbank is referring to HTML frames. If you don't know what frames are, It's probable that you're not using frames.
    Originally Posted by Diane S View Post

    .
    I just want to know how to create the kind of affiliate link that other website has created.
    There are pre-made scripts that you can install on your web hosting which will allow you to do that. One such example is http://lilurl.sourceforge.net/
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    :)

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  • Profile picture of the author piper97
    Originally Posted by Diane S View Post

    The links look like this: hxxp://productnamereview.com/discount when you hover over the affiliate links at the site.
    They do the redirect on their own site using a 301 redirect. If you Google something like "affiliate link cloaking 301 redirects" you should find some good info on how to do this.

    If you're using WordPress there are plugins that will do this without having to do any coding. Gocodes is a popular one. Your links will appear to be from your domain and will look pretty. However, when they are clicked, the visitor is redirected to the affiliate site.
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    • Profile picture of the author Diane S
      Originally Posted by mojojuju View Post

      Clickbank is referring to HTML frames. If you don't know what frames are, It's probable that you're not using frames.
      Thanks, mojojuju, I will not think about them any more then.

      Originally Posted by piper97 View Post

      They do the redirect on their own site using a 301 redirect. If you Google something like "affiliate link cloaking 301 redirects" you should find some good info on how to do this.

      If you're using WordPress there are plugins that will do this without having to do any coding. Gocodes is a popular one. Your links will appear to be from your domain and will look pretty. However, when they are clicked, the visitor is redirected to the affiliate site.
      Thanks for the search terms and the info on the plugins, piper97.

      I appreciate your answers very much. Now I will go implement.
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      • Profile picture of the author piper97
        Just a heads up. Gocodes is supposedly only compatible up to WordPress 2.8. However, I have it running on my 3.0.4 site with no issues. I did get a one time error statement on the plugin activation screen, but when I navigated away it disappeared and I've had no problems since.
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        • Profile picture of the author Diane S
          Hello All,
          What I did instead of a plugin was a lot of reading today and finally found a post at an internet marketing blog which explained what to do and sort of how to do it. I just had to fill in the missing pieces and voila! I now have my pretty links. Here are the steps, in case someone else needs them. If anyone sees any problems with these steps, please speak up!

          1. Go to cPanel of your website and with file manager go to public_html
          2. Create a new directory with the name you want your page visitors to see in the pretty link, such as 'buy' 'discount' 'official' 'trial offer' Once you have created this directory, it is going to stay empty. You are not going to touch it.
          3. Leave file manager and from cPanel go to "redirects"
          4. Create a redirect FROM yourwebsite.com/discount (or whatever pretty word you chose in step 2) TO 'your ugly hoplink from clickbank - that long string of characters and numbers'
          5. You are finished with your cPanel now. Now go to your website page with the ugly links and replace with hxxp://yourwebsite.com/discount
          6. Save the change, then click on the new pretty link to be sure you see the redirection to the merchant site.
          7. At the merchant site check to verify your cloaked hoplink got a click from what you just did - there may be a long time lag, perhaps it will show up tomorrow

          So that is what I did. Now I am going over to clickbank to see how to do step 7. Don't know if it is even possible....it is just what I read in the other person's post. I have completed steps 1 through 6 and from my side I see the redirect. But I would dearly love to get verification using step 7 ....
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          • Profile picture of the author piper97
            That is great work. I'm glad you were able to get this done easily.

            One possible way to verify that your affiliate link has made its way through is to click on one of your links and work your way through to the Clickbank purchase screen. If you scroll to the bottom of the purchase screen you should see "affiliate=XXXXXX" with XXXXXX being your affiliate name. You don't have to enter any purchase details - name, credit card etc. to get this info.
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            • Profile picture of the author piper97
              One additional point. You should clear your cookies first to ensure that a prior cookie will not interfere with your experiment.
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              • Profile picture of the author Diane S
                Originally Posted by piper97 View Post

                That is great work. I'm glad you were able to get this done easily.

                One possible way to verify that your affiliate link has made its way through is to click on one of your links and work your way through to the Clickbank purchase screen. If you scroll to the bottom of the purchase screen you should see "affiliate=XXXXXX" with XXXXXX being your affiliate name. You don't have to enter any purchase details - name, credit card etc. to get this info.
                I had forgotten about that! I wish that info was not there on the order form, though! What is ClickBank thinking? That internet marketers do not know how to use that info to their own financial advantage? :rolleyes:

                Originally Posted by piper97 View Post

                One additional point. You should clear your cookies first to ensure that a prior cookie will not interfere with your experiment.
                Good point. Cleared my cookies and clicked, and yes, I see my ID at the bottom of the order form.

                Thanks so much! That was way easier than going to ClickBank analytics, where there is nothing to distinguish my own clicks from any other visitor clicks. :confused:
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