Redirecting offers with shorteners?

Hey guys, if you use a url shortener to redirect a cpa offer, does the cpa company see the original page or just the shortener url as the referral?

Do any of you guys use shorteners or do you use different methods for offer redirecting?

If it's an actual server-side redirect (which a short-url service typically is), then the destination page will see the original page as the referrer... not the shortened url.

There are ways around this. Most people will tell you to use a double-meta refresh. Although that just blanks the referrer and will lead to problems eventually, anyway. Depends on what you're trying to do and why you don't want to be found out.

I have some scripts I wrote that do dynamic footprint cloaking that is much more effective than blanking the referrer... but that's more than most people need (because most people will do it wrong and get caught anyway).

Anyway. No. URL shorteners won't hide your referring page.

Hi justin71,

I've used url shorteners a few times but mainly when I've got a landing page setup with affiliate links within it.

In answer to your main question, because the order of the redirection is:
short url->landing page->affiliate link clicked->CPA offer

this would mean that they would see the landing page as the referrer.

Main reasons I've used url shorteners though is on twitter when every character counts.

Hope this helps answer your questions.

All the best.

Paul

bargainsuk said:

Hi justin71,

I've used url shorteners a few times but mainly when I've got a landing page setup with affiliate links within it.

In answer to your main question, because the order of the redirection is:
short url->landing page->affiliate link clicked->CPA offer

this would mean that they would see the landing page as the referrer.

Main reasons I've used url shorteners though is on twitter when every character counts.

Hope this helps answer your questions.

All the best.

Paul

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Thank you, That's very useful and easy to learn.