301 and affiliate program

I have a EMD with a company's name in it, say maccomputers.com. I have a few high ranking keywords with this domain, and I want to join a mac computer affiliate. But I have a feeling that they will a) reject my application for their program and/or b) send a C&D. I mean I'm sure they'll come across it sooner or later if they haven't already, but I'd like to stay under the radar as much as possible.

Would it be possible to create a site, like joescomputers.com, have joescomputers.com/mac/ 301 redirect to the affiliates site, and I will 301 maccomputers.com/mac/ to joecomputers.com/mac/, so it will be a double redirect, and the affilaite sees the traffic coming from generic site that doesn't have their name in it?

But I guess this will mess up the visits/click and something will look fishy? Or could I put an iframe on maccomputers.com so it appears to the affiliate that joecomputers.com is getting the traffic?

Hope that made sense and someone knows what I mean.

Someone here must be smarter than me? :/

Register as an affiliate using joecomputers.com/mac/ and then redirect traffic from MacComputers.com to joecomputers.com/mac/signup.

Cheers

Set up your joescomputer.com/mac and put CPA redirector 2 on it, pointing to the aff program. Then 301 maccomputer.com to joescomputer.com/mac. The aff program will only see the joescomputer url as the referrer. Teh click count the aff program sees should be accurate but it's slightly more difficult to separate out the maccomputer.com traffic from the rest of the traffic you're sending joescomputer (if you are in fact sending it traffic from other sources).

Why MUST he put CPA Redirector on JoesComputers.com ?? CPA Redirector is NOT a rogue referer spoofing tool. In fact, I would say from my understanding of it that CPA Redirector is NOT suitable for spoofing referers across domains, or even across directories(folders) on the same base URL.

In a nutshell, let me just say that CPA Redirector will NOT serve any useful purpose in as far as I can see here. So we do NOT need to use it at all here If we do a 301 redirect of maccomputers.com/xx to joescomputers.com/xx and joescomputers itself redirects further to the affiliate link then the referer is going to be joescomputers, especially if we use the CPanel to create the redirect, because it will then be a server-side redirect, and NOT a Javascript double meta refresh, etc !

The only reason I would use CPA Redirector for this particular scenario is if I am overly concerned about the visitor's browser leaking out the referer of "maccomputers.com" as the source, but in the given scenario here I really Don't see why a plain server-side redirect would allow the referer to be reported to the affiliate link as "maccomputers.com". But like I am saying, if you are extremely skeptical about referers, then yeah, you can go ahead and implement your redirect through a CPA Redirector php page on joescomputers, rather than a plain server-side redirect (CPanel/RewriteCond/RewriteRule).

What about creating the traffic/impressions? If joecomputers is just a front site, and doens't really get any traffic, all it will do is send 'clicks' with no 'views' from joecomputers?

Thanks for the help.

mazzim said:

Why MUST he put CPA Redirector on JoesComputers.com ?? CPA Redirector is NOT a rogue referer spoofing tool. In fact, I would say from my understanding of it that CPA Redirector is NOT suitable for spoofing referers across domains, or even across directories(folders) on the same base URL.

In a nutshell, let me just say that CPA Redirector will NOT serve any useful purpose in as far as I can see here. So we do NOT need to use it at all here If we do a 301 redirect of maccomputers.com/xx to joescomputers.com/xx and joescomputers itself redirects further to the affiliate link then the referer is going to be joescomputers, especially if we use the CPanel to create the redirect, because it will then be a server-side redirect, and NOT a Javascript double meta refresh, etc !

The only reason I would use CPA Redirector for this particular scenario is if I am overly concerned about the visitor's browser leaking out the referer of "maccomputers.com" as the source, but in the given scenario here I really Don't see why a plain server-side redirect would allow the referer to be reported to the affiliate link as "maccomputers.com". But like I am saying, if you are extremely skeptical about referers, then yeah, you can go ahead and implement your redirect through a CPA Redirector php page on joescomputers, rather than a plain server-side redirect (CPanel/RewriteCond/RewriteRule).

Click to expand...

Mega face palm.

Server side 301s carry the referrer so if you 301 from maccomputer.com to joecomputer.com to the aff program, the aff program would see maccomputer.com as the referrer. 301ing across domains server side doesn't change the referrer.

You need to fake the referrer client side using CPA Redirector 2. You could have tested that yourself in the time it took to write your long winded and semi-retarded post.

Jon I'm not sure what you mean about clicks and view. You put up a fake ad on joescomputer and all the aff program sees is traffic coming from joescomputer, they don't see maccomputer at all. It looks to them like joescomputer has all the traffic that, in reality, maccomputer does.

jon_xx_x said:

What about creating the traffic/impressions? If joecomputers is just a front site, and doens't really get any traffic, all it will do is send 'clicks' with no 'views' from joecomputers?
Thanks for the help.

Click to expand...

"clicks with NO views" ?? Nope I don't think so. In fact, the opposite is true. There will be VIEWS with NO Clicks. It will appear "to the affiliate link" that traffic is coming from "joescomputers.com/mac" yet when the affiliate manager goes to check this link, he will INSTANTLY be redirect BACK to the affiliate link (affiliate offer/landing page), meaning that people who see (VIEW) the offer did NOT CLICK on any promotional link or any promotional banner that promotes the offer (a very SHADY practice!!!). As soon as he sees this, the affiliate manager will smell a dead rat about your suspicious/weird method of promoting the offer And this is an issue that I emphasize in the other thread about CPA Redirector, over here =

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/3404103-post256.html

AND over here too =

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/3048188-post228.html

. . . however for convenience and for reasons of consolidated thinking, I've copied the text and pasted it here below . . .


________________START of copied text1
My understanding of the way CPA Redirector works is that it SHOULD be used in a case where you want to send your "grey traffic" to a perfectly looking "legitimate" affiliate page which has your legitimate affiliate banners or affiliate links on it. However, your "legitimate" affiliate page will have TWO-faces. It employs a powerful misdirection tactic... thanks to CPA Redirector !

One face of the page is that the grey traffic reaches the page using a MAGIC NUMBER, so your grey traffic reaches this page as

www.mysite.com/page.php?magicnumber=36473

and THAT maigc number part you see is WHAT makes the page BEHAVE differently !! If the page is reached or opened with this MAGIC NUMBER part specified in the URL, then it REDIRECTS the visitor to the CPA offer page (or ANY offer landing page) AUTOMATICALLY Now when the visitor reaches the CPA offer page, u might incorrectly think that the CPA offer page will see

www.mysite.com/page.php?magicnumber=36473 as the referer.

But NO, that's NOT the case ! The CPA offer page will actually see ONLY this part as the referer

www.mysite.com/page.php

(NO magic NUMBER part!!). And if you yourself visit the page WITHOUT THE MAGIC NUMBER PART, then the page will show only as a normal web page with your legitimate affiliate links/banners on it. It will NOT redirect you to the CPA offer automatically under ANY circumstances, guaranteed ! You can TEST with 50 different types of web browsers including mobile phone browsers, etc.. the page will NOT redirect you automatically to the offer if you visit it WITHOUT the magic number ! You will HAVE TO CLICK those affiliate links as a human being in order to go to the CPA offer page. And that's the TWO powerful faces of your affiliate page, thanks to CPA Redirector

To drill it in again, ONE face of your affiliate page is this :
www.mysite.com/page.php?magicnumber=36473

While the other face is this one :
www.mysite.com/page.php

That's two totally different behaviours from the SAME base page (page.php). The power to automatically redirect the traffic is hidden in reaching the page via the Magic Number part in the URL And that's how your grey traffic reaches this page.

________________END of copied text1



________________START of copied text2

Posted by HFlame7:
So that the CPA Networks don't know how you're really making that money or that you're going against their terms of service. So, for example, let's say that you promote a CPA offer that does NOT allow you to promote it through e-mail. With this plugin you could promote through e-mail but the source/referrer would "tell" the CPA Network that you were actually promoting it through a website instead of via email. So basically you get to do black hat stuff while appearing to be 100% white hat.

REPLY from Mazzim:
Absolutely ! Stated in other words, you would be sending illegitimate traffic from a bad source (just bad or fraudulent traffic..lol ) to the offer landing page, but you want to bounce that traffic through a clean/legitimate "website" (in this case it must be a wordpress post) which will cause the clean/legitimate website to appear as the ONE sending the traffic. HOWEVER, if a person visits the clean/legitimate website (the wordpress post) to check on it, he would find that IT HAS the offer advertised on it (it has a banner/link to the offer offer) and he would NOT notice anything fishy. In fact, he would HAVE to PHYSICALLY CLICK the affiliate links/banners on the page in order to proceed to the offer page

Here's an important warning for those who are too curious on this and you just WANT TO USE IT, but you have No idea/clarity on what it's about :

If you DO NOT have the offer advertised on the post, you are playing with Fire! . . . because if you read what i say above, you should NOT redirect people/traffic by having them go through an "EMPTY" wordpress post! you MUST have the link to the offer and some text (LOTS of text/review/etc) talking about the offer and pimping the offer on that wordpress post.

________________END of copied text2

mazzim said:

"clicks with NO views" ?? Nope I don't think so. In fact, the opposite is true. There will be VIEWS with NO Clicks. It will appear "to the affiliate link" that traffic is coming from "joescomputers.com/mac" yet when the affiliate manager goes to check this link, he will INSTANTLY be redirect BACK to the affiliate link (affiliate offer/landing page), meaning that people who see (VIEW) the offer did NOT CLICK on any promotional link or any promotional banner that promotes the offer (a very SHADY practice!!!). As soon as he sees this, the affiliate manager will smell a dead rat about your suspicious/weird method of promoting the offer

Click to expand...

Please stop posting your incoherent nonsense.

This is how it works:

* Surfer goes to maccomputer.com

* This redirects via 301 to joecomputer.com/mac/index.php?mn=1234, where CPA redirector is installed.

* CPA redirector then does a javascript form POST to itself then another redirect to itself to strip the magic number, then that redirects via 301 to affprogram.com.

* The referrer that affprogam.com sees is joecomputer.com/mac/index.php.

* Affiliate manager checks the referrers and goes to joecomputer.com/mac/index.php with no magic number. All he sees is the clean full page ad you put there to act as your legitimate referrer. He doesn't get redirected anywhere and is happy because he sees a legit looking ad for the offer on the referrering url.

If you don't understand how referrers are passed by redirects or how CPA redirector works, please STFU and stop trying to confuse people.

Autumn said:

Dude, you are completely full of shit. Please stop posting your incoherent nonsense.

This is how it works:

* Surfer goes to maccomputer.com

* This redirects via 301 to joecomputer.com/mac/index.php?mn=1234, where CPA redirector is installed.

* CPA redirector then does a javascript form POST to itself then another redirect to itself to strip the magic number, then that redirects via 301 to affprogram.com.

* The referrer that affprogam.com sees is joecomputer.com/mac/index.php.

* Affiliate manager checks the referrers and goes to joecomputer.com/mac/index.php with no magic number. All he sees is the clean full page ad you put there to act as your legitimate referrer. He doesn't get redirected anywhere and is happy because he sees a legit looking ad for the offer on the referrering url.

If you don't understand how referrers are passed by redirects or how CPA redirector works, please STFU and stop trying to confuse people.

Click to expand...

Autumn !!!

What's wrong with you bro ? Lmao ! Why are you saying I am completely full of shit ?? Lol. I cannot stop myself from Laughing at the way you just burst out at me like that ! Jeeeeek . . . Calm doooooown would you? Well, from reading what you're saying it appears to me that you are confirming almost EVERYTHING I am trying to say here. You know, due to "assumptions" and "impressions", communication can be a big problem at times. I do Not know what it is I said/mentioned that is "completely full of shit". From what you're saying, it sounds to me like we're in agreement

I know exactly how CPA Redirector works. I've been using it since 2009, and I've profited greatly from it. I really Don't know what confusion you're referring to. You can see from my other replies on the CPA Redirector 2 thread that I am explaining "precisely" what you're explaining here. It appears to me like we're we're in total agreement here.

BTW, for your information... I was **kindly invited** by the OP to come and take a look at this thread and to "comment" on this thread regarding CPA Redirector, while I was minding a great outing on this beautiful Sunday afternoon. Now that says something about WHY you see me *talking* here ! So I cannot shut the f$ck up because I am NOT talking by self-appointment here. I am also NOT talking because "I know", but rather I am talking "by invitation here", because others have noted something about me that I might NOT even be aware of myself.

Lorrd ! . . This is becoming so humourous now ! Anyway, let's proceed guys . . . calm down Autumn. There was probably some unintended minor misunderstanding somewhere here somehow .

Geez, now I'm getting even more confused lol.
The affiliate is through commission junction. And I think they use an image in the link to calculate impressions(think that's how it works), so that's what I'm worried about.
How do I show them that the ad is getting a lot of impressions? I mean on macomputers I'm getting say 1000/day, and joecomputers.com I'm not getting anything. So if the ad is on joecomputers.com, there won't be any impressions. Or am I missing something?

mazzim said:

Lorrd ! . . This is becoming so humourous now ! Anyway, let's proceed guys . . . calm down Autumn. There was probably some unintended minor misunderstanding somewhere here somehow .

Click to expand...

Although the copy and pasted stuff does indeed agree with my post, it would seem that you don't really understand it, since you also quite clearly stated that you don't think that CPA redirector is required and that you can sufficiently fake the referrer by sending server side 301s - which is NOT the case:

In fact, I would say from my understanding of it that CPA Redirector is NOT suitable for spoofing referers across domains, or even across directories(folders) on the same base URL.

Click to expand...

You quite clearly also state in the opening paragraph that I quoted above that an affiliate manager who looks at the referring url created by CPA redirector will get redirected straight back to the offer - which is NOT the case, since the referring url seen by the affiliate program doesn't have the magic number which triggers the redirection and referrer faking:

It will appear ?to the affiliate link? that traffic is coming from ?joescomputers.com/mac? yet when the affiliate manager goes to check this link, he will INSTANTLY be redirect BACK to the affiliate link (affiliate offer/landing page), meaning that people who see (VIEW) the offer did NOT CLICK on any promotional link or any promotional banner that promotes the offer (a very SHADY practice!!!). As soon as he sees this, the affiliate manager will smell a dead rat about your suspicious/weird method of promoting the offer And this is an issue that I emphasize in the other thread about CPA Redirector, over here

Click to expand...

Please stop confusing poor Jon.

jon_xx_x said:

Geez, now I'm getting even more confused lol.
The affiliate is through commission junction. And I think they use an image in the link to calculate impressions(think that's how it works), so that's what I'm worried about.
How do I show them that the ad is getting a lot of impressions? I mean on macomputers I'm getting say 1000/day, and joecomputers.com I'm not getting anything. So if the ad is on joecomputers.com, there won't be any impressions. Or am I missing something?

Click to expand...

The easy solution is not to use their creatives - just use the link code url to redirect your traffic to the offer using CPA redirector 2. If you have to use an approved creative, then host it yourself and put it on the fake landing page that you use for CPA redirector 2. If / when they ask, you tell them that you're sending all your traffic through the landing page at joecomputer.com/mac.

If they are making you use a particular approved creative and you're not allowed to host it yourself (ie. they want to track impressions on the ad as well as clicks to the offer, which is quite an unusual situation), then if you still wanted to redirect straight to the offer, you could put a 1 second wait in the redirection part of CPA redirector 2 and load their tracking pixel (possibly in an iframe) in order to get your impression count up.

If you are using their creative and you WANT to show them that ad rather than just redirecting straight to the offer, you would just 301 from maccomputer.com to joecomputer.com/mac. The referring url that affprogram sees for the tracking pixel embedded in joecomputer.com/mac would be
joecomputer.com/mac, since the pixel is embedded in the html of that page.

Definitely much better just to not use their creatives and avoid the tracking pixel entirely.