Link Cloakers/Maskers & Redirects that KEEP the referrer

hardsoft · #1 (**permalink**) 08-15-2008, 08:56 AM

Hey everyone,

My request is a bit different from the usual... 'how do i hide my referrer?'

Are there any link cloakers/maskers that will KEEP my referrer.

For example... If someone is on my landing page...

Landing Page---> User clicks on cloaked link -->Merchant landing page

I want the networks to see my landing page as the referrer, but dont want to use my 'naked' affiliate link.

This is what i came up with from researching the forums... but i find conflicting opinions so i just want to make sure.
The following will work:
tinyurl
php redirect
javascript redirect

anything else?

**Genjutsu** · #2 (**permalink**) 08-15-2008, 09:09 AM

php redirect will keep your referer.

If you want to send someone to ebay affiliate link.

ebay.php

Code:

<?php

header('Location: http://www.ebayaffiliatelink.com/');

?>

cloaked link looks like this: Visit Ebay Today

You can also be a little more fancy and use htaccess, same story different day.

**vmedia** · #3 (**permalink**) 08-15-2008, 09:22 AM

gen -
can i take garbage traffic and clean referer with a double-refresh then somehow redirect it to show a referer of my choice?

sort of like if the ref was junktraffic.com how could i change it into mysite.com/index.php?

**Genjutsu** · #4 (**permalink**) 08-15-2008, 09:42 AM

yes its possible to do that. and you dont need a double meta to clear it first.
You want to setup a page like below and send your traffic to it.

sendtraffictothispage.html

Code:

<body onload="javascript:frmForcedReferrer.submit();">
<form action="http://www.yoursite.com/redirect.php" method="post" name="frmForcedReferrer">
</form>

This should do the trick, http://www.yoursite.com/redirect.php should be a php file with code similar to what i posted in my last post in this thread. Just a simple php redirect.

The referer that your affiliate would see is http://www.yourdomain.com/sendtraffictothispage.html

This is normally bad, but if you know how to cloak that page so only traffic from certain referers are allowed to be redirected, your golden.
Remember to test it first by using a test.php file to log the referers and make sure all browsers work correctly.

omfg · #5 (**permalink**) 08-15-2008, 06:49 PM

Awesome. I know I'm not supposed to spam the forum with 'thank you' posts, but I'm a JS-retard and this is just totally awesome for me.

hardsoft · #6 (**permalink**) 08-15-2008, 07:49 PM

thanks gen... i feel confident when advice is coming from you

**bobfrapples** · #7 (**permalink**) 08-15-2008, 07:51 PM

Nice work...no js background here either. Gen, I'm also assuming (I know, never assume) that you could put more than 1 form action site reference. i.e. have sendtraffictothispage.html be kind of a traffic catchall and then "distribute" it evenly to several sites equally?

**Genjutsu** · #8 (**permalink**) 08-15-2008, 08:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobfrapples

Nice work...no js background here either. Gen, I'm also assuming (I know, never assume) that you could put more than 1 form action site reference. i.e. have sendtraffictothispage.html be kind of a traffic catchall and then "distribute" it evenly to several sites equally?

yes, you could do that, but it would probably be better to do the redirection in the php file it should be redirecting to. In this case ebay.php could be renamed to redirect.php, redirect.php would then pull destinations from an array, or directly from a database. I have a program that does something very similar right now in beta test. If its automated profit, ill consider sharing/selling it.

**bobfrapples** · #9 (**permalink**) 08-18-2008, 01:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Genjutsu

yes its possible to do that. and you dont need a double meta to clear it first.
You want to setup a page like below and send your traffic to it.

sendtraffictothispage.html

Code:

<body onload="javascript:frmForcedReferrer.submit();">
<form action="http://www.yoursite.com/redirect.php" method="post" name="frmForcedReferrer">
</form>

This should do the trick, http://www.yoursite.com/redirect.php should be a php file with code similar to what i posted in my last post in this thread. Just a simple php redirect.

The referer that your affiliate would see is http://www.yourdomain.com/sendtraffictothispage.html

This is normally bad, but if you know how to cloak that page so only traffic from certain referers are allowed to be redirected, your golden.
Remember to test it first by using a test.php file to log the referers and make sure all browsers work correctly.

To check for referrer first, can you just insert the js in the middle of the code, like this? If it's coming from the traffic source, it processes the redirect but if it's not coming from the traffic source, then it just processes the page normally. I'm guessing that you can combine js and php in one command but I just don't know how.

PHP Code:


			 
<?php

$referer = $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'];

    if($referer == "mytrafficsource.html")

    {

        <body onload="javascript:frmForcedReferrer.submit();">

<form action="http://www.yoursite.com/redirect.php" method="post" name="frmForcedReferrer">

</form>

    } 

?>

**polymorphs** · #10 (**permalink**) 08-19-2008, 09:07 AM

It's amazing how a couple of messages in one thread are more helpful than most the ther forums out there in total

whynot · #11 (**permalink**) 09-07-2008, 11:57 AM

This looks to be just what I need but I cannot get the code to pass the referrer from my index.php

This is what I have like suggested in my domains index.php file.

Code:

<?php

header('Location: https://MyAffiliateLink/');

?>

When I check my affiliate logs of where my traffic is coming from it's blank. Could it be beacause I'm redirecting to a https: domain?

Also, would I have to advertise my domain as MyDomain.com or MyDomain.com/index.php to get the redirect to work properly. I want to show my referring domain so I can track how my different forms of advertising are doing.

Any ideas what could be up?

lizon283 · #12 (**permalink**) 09-07-2008, 08:45 PM

It's not that its from https. that redirect code sends either null or the previous page as the referrer.

Site A
Site B
Site C

I'm looking for code that will send something from site B to site C with site B being the referrer(it all comes initially from site A).

I've succeeded in doing this a few different ways but there is always some little hiccup. Would love to hear what others have to say.