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Admin Tools

#9874 Affiliate Cloaking - Url Redirection

Posted in ‘Admin Tools for Joomla! 4 & 5’
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Environment Information

Joomla! version
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PHP version
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Admin Tools version
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Latest post by nicholas on Wednesday, 11 May 2011 11:43 CDT

Wednesday, 11 May 2011 10:54 CDT

user38727
Mandatory information about my setup:

Have I searched the forum before posting? Yes
Have I read the Troubleshooting Wizard before posting? No
Have I read the documentation before posting? Yes
Joomla! version: 1.5.23
PHP version: (unknown)
MySQL version: (unknown)
Host: tophost.gr
Admin Tools Professional version: 2.0.3


Description of my issue:

Hi ( Kalispera ) from Greece

I am trying to establish a safe Affiliate cloaking solution using the URL redirection feature of Admin Tools. Although after applying the URL redirection, the existing affiliate link / code is not shown anymore at the browser's status bar (the bar at the bottom left corner of my browser), when I click on the said link and while the browser is trying to open the new page, the affiliate code is revealed to the public. Please note that the affiliate link is placed inside the Link field of a menu item type External Link. May I have your general views on this issue? Is the URL redirection of Admin tools an appropriate solution for effective affiliate cloaking?

Wednesday, 11 May 2011 11:08 CDT

nicholas
The URL redirection feature is exactly as it says: it creates URL redirections. The browser will always display the final URL. If you want this kind of "hidden" URLs you have to use a SEF component and add a custom SEF alias. For example, this is possible with sh404SEF and AceSEF. However, if you are going to be redirecting to a different site than yours, there is no way to achieve what you want.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Wednesday, 11 May 2011 11:30 CDT

user38727
Hi Nikos,

pls let me clarify the following, just to confirm that you clearly understood my initial inquiry.

existing url: affiliate link

new url: e.g mywebsite.com/airtickets

final url: the website of the advertiser / seller

by clicking on the new url,the browser for 2-3 sec shows the existing url, until it opens the final url. Is it possible to avoid the display of the "existing" url (affiliate link)? The final url of course shall be displayed to the browser's address bar.




Wednesday, 11 May 2011 11:43 CDT

nicholas
No, this is impossible. It's how the web works. It would be impossible for the user's browser to know what URL to request on the third party (advertiser / seller) site if you didn't let the browser know which URL to request. As simple as that.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

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