Could someone explain what's going on behind the scenes here and why? I was studying the site http://www.sage-hearts.com/, (an online dating "info" site stuffed with affiliate links.) On their review page for Match.com (http://sage-hearts.com/dating-service-reviews/match.html) the link TO match.com is actually this: http://sage-hearts.com/recommends/match.php This page directly takes you to match.com. (as a redirect?) Once you're at match.com, your url is this: http://www.match.com/matchus/cp.aspx?cpp=/en-us/partner/affiliate/affiliate_reg_7days.html&lpid=girl&trackingid=522990&bannerid=652572&siteID=PvjioY3I0VU-284hsBWVkxgLJint6uBr4w Obviously the affiliate code is right there. Why didn't they just embed THAT code into their links, verses having the /recommends/match.php page? What's going on with the /recommends/match.php page? It's ONLY a redirect? Somewhere they're embedding their affiliate code. Why did they do this? What's the advantage?
The advantage is that visitors who look at link's location before clicking it will find a page on the site they are currently on more trustworthy than another site with a long address. Some people get spooked when they see long web addresses with numbers and letters..
This is simple to do. Just make empty .php file and put this code in: <? header ("location: http://affiliatepage.com/aff.php?aff=00"); ?> of course you have to replace this link with your own affiliate link. This is very often way to hide affiliate links. Hiding them is a good idea, because some of the people don't like to click on affiliates links because they don't want for affiliates to make money. I use mainly this way of hiding my links.
It's also easier to manage in the future. If that person had 100 links on the site to match.com, and match.com decided to change their link structure, he/she would only need to edit the one match.php file