Where is YOUR website? When someone searches online for the product or service you offer, will they find you or your competition? Watch a free video here Thanks for visiting!
To mask or not to mask…that is the question…
First, what is URL masking?
When you mask a URL, it means that the URL you are masking stays in the address bar of the browser instead of the URL you are linking to. For example, my affiliate URL for my network marketing company is http://www.sendoutcards.com/88338. If I want, I could mask http://WorkWithRoxanne.com so that http://WorkWithRoxanne.com stays in the address bar and http://www.sendoutcards.com/88338 never shows up. Many affiliate marketers who are assigned long affiliate URLs use masking so people can’t strip the affiliate portion off and bypass them. Sounds pretty good, huh?!
DON’T STOP READING YET
Second, should you use masking?
NEVER. The only time you should use masking is if you want a URL to go to an information page and there are no signup forms there and no outlinks.
I got a call the other day. The person told me that they personally sent 5 people to their affiliate link and didn’t get the credit for it. After a bit of discussion, I found out that they bought a URL and redirected that URL to their affiliate link. Nothing wrong with that. That’s a great idea. However, I then found out that they masked the URL. Big no no!! When their 5 people entered the masked URL into their browser, it took them to the correct affiliate page. But…when they clicked the link to join, since the URL was masked, it stripped the affiliate portion away and they did not get credit for sending people to their link.
If you are doing affiliate marketing, feel free to redirect a URL to your affiliate link. DO NOT MASK IT. If you mask it, you are wasting money marketing your affiliate link because you get no credit for anyone going through that link. There is no way for the person or company running the affiliate program to know who came through your masked URL.
And don’t EVER mask a URL going to a blog. Let’s say you’re reading this blog. And, because there’s so much great info here, you want to send someone to an individual post. If you entered through a masked URL, the address bar in your browser will always show the masked URL so you are unable to copy the link to a specific post.
So…remember…if you are linking to a one page website with no links out, you may mask a URL. Other than that, never mask a URL.
When in doubt…DO NOT MASK.
