How To Cloak Links

Step by Step Insructions

Here are the steps to create a cloaked link (see Appendix I for a detailed explanation of what each line does):

1. Pick a friendly URL. It must include the fully qualified domain or your web site. So for
this example the domain is somesite.com and my friendly URL is:

http://www.somesite.com/mygreatestoffer 

http://www.somsite.com/ is the fully qualified domain.

2. Have your destination URL ready to copy and paste. For the example I’ll use: http://digiweb.bryxen4.hop.clickbank.net/ 
 

3. Open the .htaccess file that came with this e-Book (if you can’t see the .htaccess file it is because your computer is set to not show hidden files. You can either change your computer’s settings or use htaccess.txt. If you do the second make sure to change the name after you upload the file to the server.)

4. Place the cursor where the high lighted -> is below and hit return

#BEGIN

RewriteEngine On

->

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

# END

5. Type RewriteRule (no space between Rewrite and Rule) a space a ^ and everything after /, so in the example it is ^mygreatestoffer (no space between ^ and the rest) (/)?$ a space the destination URL, in this example http://digiweb.bryxen4.hop.clickbank.net/  a space [L] 

So the example ends up looking like:

#BEGIN

RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule ^mygreatestoffer(/)?$ http://digiweb.bryxen4.hop.clickbank.net/ [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d  

# END

6. Save the file and upload it to the your web server. Make sure to name it .htaccess if you used htaccess.txt.

NOTE: If there is already an .htaccess file on your server see What If There Is Already An .htaccess File? Below. DO NOT OVERWRITE AN EXISTING .htaccess FILE.

That’s all there is to it. Now you can put your friendly link anywhere and it will automatically send the user to your destination URL and they won’t even know it went through your site at all.

How Do I Add More Cloaked Links?

Simply add more RewriteRule lines. Here is what it would look like with a new friendly URL of mysoso offer and another of recommends/me

#BEGIN

RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule ^mygreatestoffer(/)?$ http://digiweb.bryxen4.hop.clickbank.net/ [L]

RewriteRule ^mysosooffer(/)?$ http://digiweb.bryxen1.hop.clickbank.net/ [L]

RewriteRule ^recommends/me(/)?$ http://digiweb.bryxen4.hop.clickbank.net/ [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

# END

What If There Is Already An .htaccess File?

The first thing you do, before you even open it to look at it, is make a back up copy, either on the server or on your local drive. I do both and name it .htaccess_bu.

Then you want to open it and look for:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

Here’s a sample .htaccess file from a Wordpress installation (how do you think they manage all those friendly URLs?).

ErrorDocument 401 /onerror.htm

ErrorDocument 403 /onerror.htm

# BEGIN WordPress

RewriteEngine On

RewriteBase /

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

# END WordPress

Now put your own cloaked link RewriteRule entries before the first. This will evaluate your cloaked links first and then continue if the request is not in your list.

# BEGIN WordPress

RewriteEngine On

RewriteBase /

RewriteRule ^mygreatestoffer(/)?$ http://digiweb.bryxen4.hop.clickbank.net/ [L]

RewriteRule ^mysosooffer(/)?$ http://digiweb.bryxen1.hop.clickbank.net/ [L]

RewriteRule ^recommends/me(/)?$ http://digiweb.bryxen4.hop.clickbank.net/ [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

# END WordPress

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