Using Affiliate Links can sometimes be difficult for those just starting out in Affiliate Marketing. Why? Well, because they’re told that if they use the link as-is, then they stand to lose a lot to commission theft — only to be followed by a plug for a link cloaking tool. Some tools are free, while some are not. But these tools are not a must when it comes to using affiliate links.

Another way to use affiliate links is to redirect them using your .htaccess file. If you’re host server is setup ala Linux-Apache-MySQL,PHP (LAMP), then you can use a .htaccess file. What is it exactly? Well, it’s a configuration file that’s used by the Apache web server. Don’t worry, it’s not as difficult as you think.

First off, if you’re using WordPress for your site and have chosen to use permalinks, then you already have a .htaccess file. For those of you that don’t, here’s how you create one:

Step #1: Open up text editor (e.g. notepad)
Step #2: Save it as “htaccess.txt” (without the quotes)

That’s it. Seriously. There is one more step that is performed when you upload it to your server, but we’ll get back to that later. Let’s get started with redirecting your affiliate links. Open up the “htaccess.txt” file that you just created. If you already have one on your server, download a copy of it on your desktop (make a backup too) and rename it to “htaccess.txt” (without the quotes).

Enter the following on new blank line:

Redirect /<any name or term> <affiliate link>

Replace <any name or term> with any name or term or identifier you’d like to use. Selling Super Widgets, use something like superwidgets or swidget.

Replace <affiliate link> with your affiliate link. It should look something like this:

http://superwidgetsforyou.com?id=12345

Here’s an example:

Redirect /superwidgets http://superwidgetsforyou.com?id=12345

Next, save the file. You can repeat this for every affiliate link you’d like to add. Just make sure you start on a new line like this:

Redirect /superwidgets http://superwidgetsforyou.com?id=12345
Redirect /widgetaddons http://widget-addons-online.com?affid=5858

Done adding all your affiliate links? Save that file and make a backup. Next, upload htaccess.txt to your server root. Normally that’s the public_html or html folder. Finally, rename htaccess.txt to .htaccess

Note the . preceding the name htaccess. There also won’t be a suffix like .txt. Remove that too. If you have an existing .htaccess file on the server. Backup it up then delete it before you rename htaccess.txt.

Okay, that’s it. Now, every time you want to use a link, simply use your site and the name you gave your redirect. For example:

http://yoursitename.com/superwidgets

or

http://yoursitename.com/widgetaddons

Try it out by typing it directly into your browser. It should automatically redirect you using your affiliate link. Nifty isn’t it? Well, that’s pretty much it. Just keep adding your links to the .htaccess file and you’ll be able to manage your affiliate links a little better without the use of any additional software.

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