Link Cloaking?

One extra tip- I use the .info URL, and create subdomains directed to various pages. With 90 subdomains available, this brings the cost down to near Zero, and if I switch offers after a while, the subs can be redirected without having to redo the original links. Like the energizer bunny, they keep on going!

I recently went through this learning experience of how to cloak links, or get "pretty links," as I call them. I agree with nearly everything Alexa has said, but would change one thing. I have purchased one domain that gathers all my affiliate links and redirects them from that one, central location. So I have just one registration to pay each year, plus if an affiliate link structure is changed by the vendor, I go to that one URL and just change the redirect to the new structure. ALL MY AFFILIATE LINKS THEN NEVER HAVE TO BE EDITED, no matter how many blog or blog pages they are spread across. It is an extra step, and it creates an extra microsecond of delay in the redirect process, but I have verified all my "Pretty Links" do take the customer to the sales page with my affiliate info intact. It takes longer to set up, but once you get the hang of it, you have really taken care of your future. To not ever have to touch the links I am creating on all the pages I am putting up right now sure will be a time saver later.

Hi Rachel,

Thanks for your kind words ...

I sort of picked stuff up as I went along, really. (How's that for "unhelpful answer of the week"?! :rolleyes: ).

I started as an offline writer (mostly editing/re-writing people's college dissertations), moved from that to online writing, and rapidly realised I could make much more writing "affiliate marketing articles" for myself rather than for others. Again, not exactly helpful!

I do think that's a good approach.

Yes; this is its downside, of course. :rolleyes:

I do think this is a good initial approach, too. Much better than the opposite extreme, anyway.

I spent very little, when I started.

However, at some point you'll need two main things, one way or another, which require small expenditure: hosting and an autoresponder. Neither is expensive! (And some domain-names, though those are so cheap as not to be worth talking about).

I hear you, and appreciate that you'll already be aware that these are "other people's sites", which is no long-term business plan at all.

The sooner the better. Whether it's Wordpress or some equivalent which you own yourself, in your own domain-name and host on your own (leased) hosting. Until you do that, it isn't really "your business" even if you do manage to derive some income from it.

I started looking at ways of earning money online/from home when I started university, with the long-term plan (now fulfilled) of "not needing to get a job" when I graduated (last July). I tried forex-trading first (it's my father's profession and I knew a bit about it), then network marketing, made some money from each but didn't see either as a "career"/"business" for myself, and then got into internet marketing through writing, as mentioned above.

My major hurdle (and many people's major hurdle, I know) was differentiating between "information" and "misinformation".

The key concept, in this regard, I think, is the realisation that in a field of endeavour ("internet marketing") at which few people succeed, the general consensus of opinion is always likely to be misinformation. Not least because there are many failed internet marketers who have achieved some success only by advising others how to do internet marketing (on something akin to the "selling shovels during the gold-rush" philosophy, I think).

It took me a long time to work out who to listen to, in short.

It's difficult. It requires judgment. But judgment requires understanding something about the subject, so in a sense one's initial ignorance becomes a vicious circle, and I have no quick solution to offer, to that problem.

And most of the people I eventually worked out I could trust and rely on are no longer posting much, unfortunately.

I did work out some stuff on my own, from scratch, by simply ignoring everyone and everything, and in one sense the stuff I learned that way proved the most valuable and helpful to me (because of the "education process", as much as because of the information itself, of course).

Apologies for a rambling and entirely unproductive reply!