Weird redirect trick?

N

NicheFocus

Newbie

Aug 20, 2011

21

4

• Mar 13, 2013

• #1

Hi guys.

I have come across a weird redirection trick in the serps. I was just wondering if anyone knows how to pull this off?

The site in question is second in the serps for a keyword im trying to rank for. When you click the site in the SERPS it automatically redirects you to the vendor site (the site is an affiliate site) with the affiliate tracking present.

The weird thing is if you type the sites URL into the address bar it takes you to the actual affiliate site?

I triple checked to make sure i was navigating to the same Url from the serps and when I manually type in the Url.

It seems like a really efficient way to take people to a vendor site through your affiliate site. Any ideas how to do this? I checked a number of "check your redirection" sites. Some claim a 301 redirect but most can't see a redirection at all.

 

gsy159

Power Member

Apr 29, 2011

697

170

• Mar 13, 2013

• #2

So I didn't understand everything but, when people come from google they stay on the URL which is clicked on google, when they directly type the site url they get redirected?
If yes, he is just tracking if the people come from google or not, this is really easy to make with php and there are some little script in BHW to do the same.

 

N

NicheFocus

Newbie

Aug 20, 2011

21

4

• Mar 13, 2013
• Thread Starter Thread Starter

• #3

No the opposite. When the URL is clicked on Google they get redirected and when they type the URL they stay at the URL. Ill try and look for some of the PHP scripts you mentioned thanks for the help.

Do you know how Google would treat this however? I noticed the site in question dropped from the rankings for a few days and then shot back up again. I'm unsure if this was because of the redirect or a slap because of dodgy backlinks.

As far as I can tell this guy has brought an expired domain and then blasted it to the top with a high volume of low quality links. Then slapped a redirect on to funnel as much traffic to the affiliate offer as possible. Then when Google drops him from the ranking he removes the redirect shoots back up again, rinse and repeat.

 

gsy159

Power Member

Apr 29, 2011

697

170

• Mar 13, 2013

• #4

I think the word you search for is "cloaking", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaking google hates it therefore he buys a new domain after he gets a slap

 

N

NicheFocus

Newbie

Aug 20, 2011

21

4

• Mar 13, 2013
• Thread Starter Thread Starter

• #5

Thats the thing he doesn't buy a new domain his original domain just shoots back up again. Hes not doing this with one offer either he has multiple pages all ranking high for affiliate products all with different redirects...

 

gsy159

Power Member

Apr 29, 2011

697

170

• Mar 13, 2013

• #6

check his backlink history do the same backlinks and watch if you rank too

 

mrblackjack

Senior Member

Jr. VIP

Dec 6, 2011

1,014

673

• Mar 13, 2013

• #7

It's just google cloaking - very common these days. Do u want to reprt him, or to apply the same trick he does?

 

N

NicheFocus

Newbie

Aug 20, 2011

21

4

• Mar 13, 2013
• Thread Starter Thread Starter

• #8

I want to follow in this guys footsteps! He has 4 or 5 offers on the same domain as far as I can tell. All ranking in the top 10 for very popular affiliate products, all redirecting traffic. Based on my experiences in the spaces hes in that one spammed, clocked affiliate site must be earning around 4 - 8k a month.

 

Gogol

Administrator

Staff member

Moderator

Executive VIP

Jr. VIP

Sep 10, 2010

11,805

26,657

• Mar 13, 2013

• #9

Lol it's called referrer sniffing.. there's nothing new about it.... just look at the $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] if u r talkin PHP...

 

N

NicheFocus

Newbie

Aug 20, 2011

21

4

• Mar 13, 2013
• Thread Starter Thread Starter

• #10

Thanks for the help guys I have a few things to go on. Off to do some research I go.

 

domainmadness

Supreme Member

Jun 22, 2011

1,313

474

• Jul 30, 2013

• #11

Could someone elaborate a little bit how to apply this trick in practice?

 

Gogol

Administrator

Staff member

Moderator

Executive VIP

Jr. VIP

Sep 10, 2010

11,805

26,657

• Jul 30, 2013

• #12

Here is the barebone (a lot of improvement can be done on it):

Code:

<?php
if(isset($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'])){
   $reff = $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'];
   $pos = strpos($reff, 'google');
   if($pos !== false){
   //traffic came from google. Do soemthing with it
} else {
  // not google traffic, do something else...
}
} else{
  // referrer is not present. DO something else?
}

?>

domainmadness said:

Could someone elaborate a little bit how to apply this trick in practice?

Click to expand...

 

domainmadness

Supreme Member

Jun 22, 2011

1,313

474

• Jul 31, 2013

• #13

Thanks, I kind of knew that already. What I don't understand is how to implement this so you can rank high? In my niche there is now one guy ranking first quite hard keyword with really basic 1 page website. And how he did it has something to do with his 302 redirect to frontpage of wikipedia (majestic SEO showed me that last time they crawled his website it was temporarily redirected to wikipedia). But how you should do that to try rank high? Just don't get it...

 

F

FedUp

BANNED

May 31, 2013

81

27

• Aug 1, 2013

• #14

i am gonna try this, hope it works

thanks