there was some talk a while back that tinyurl were doing 'sneaky monetization' n highly trafficked links - substituting their own affiliate codes on a small percentage of cases etc. Dont know whether its true or not.
I think us you must mask your affiliates links . My webmasters use Tinyurl because they have too many offers and they can't buy domain name for all offers . I have used them but now I have domain name and promote very less offers and concentrate on few programs .
Domain forwarding is much better cloaking your affiliate link. But if don't have any domain yet, it's just good to try...
My only issues are that 1 it may be obvious you are hiding something and 2 what if they decide to add an ad gateway or something? You never know for sure, or what if the redirect service goes out of business? What if you have put that tinyurl in 100s of places and its not good anymore. My opinion, use your own domain, like your company domain if you have one. My company is called JLI Media so for example I would use... http://www.jlimedia.com/acai-berry-pimp or add them all as files in a certain directory... http://www.jlimedia.com/cloak/acai-berry-pimp.php Then have that page PHP auto redirect to the affiate. Now it doesn't look like a spam link (you may want to use "ref" or even just some numbers in place of the word cloak) and you have compete control of it. Suppose your network stops running that campaign. No need to switch 100 dif links to new link, just change it on your file and your done.
I always just go buy a .99 .info domain and mask it like that. But then i taught myself in a basement in the hood. So there are probably better ways. I just always had to find free ways to do crap when i finally figured out what crap i had to do. That's the hardest part. Well it was for me anyway. If its not worth a buck domain name its not worth marketing for hours and days and weeks and months. The only bad part is the renew domain name $7 every year. But if it hasn't paid for that in sales, it sucks anyway, let it go. Sometime i also use those cando safelist masks and just make a link out of them in blogger and use that produced html link code. Its works great for craigslist.
I would prefer to not use tiny url and keep everything on your own site. You can set up an easy php redirect in 5 seconds. Create a redirect folder and then create a file redirect/offer1.php. In that file use the header() function to spew out a 302 redirect to the affiliate site.
I never use tinyurl for affiliate links. But I use it at Twitter and when sending links to friends. When I use it, I always explain where the link will take them. For affiliate links I am using a free plugin for wordpress called wpmarketer. - jens -
Its reliable and also you could use a dot tk domain( google it). But I tend to prefer info domains that are dirt cheap $.99 and are 1000 times more reliable
I see alot of people using tinyurl but I don't use it because I don't think it offer you to see where clicks came from.
Tinyurl and such are reliable. However, it is still weird. Why don't you just 301 redirected under your own domain instead of using other service like this. I don't understand the idea behind using this kind of link cloaking. The look is unprofessional and many peoples seems fed off because of that look. If you are some Joe around here and you see this kind of link, I bet some of you may aware of which place the link will lead you to and avoid clicking on them. That's it.
if you stand behind the product and think its so great then why make it look like your hiding something
I hate tinyurl services as it looks like you're hiding something, so more and more people are shying away from clicking on them now. Plus, what happens when one of those url services goes under or the tinyurl site owner calls it quits? What will happen to all your links floating around the net? Plus, the links are hard to remember too...etc. Use your own original domain, or subdomain. If you cant afford one then you shouldn't be working online. One last thing...someone suggested masking your domain link. Big Mistake! I made that mistake early on and found out that some sponsors with shopping cart software will break your masked link and you LOSE the sale you just referred. BAD IDEA!! Just use a domain name that resembles your sponsors and redirect to them without masking. You'll make far more sales that way.