more link changes coming (and cloaking links)

[universal4]

One of the many many subjects that comes up every so often here is whether or not to cloak affiliate links.

Well here is the perfect reason.

Deckmedia has just moved/migrated to a new back end and we have been asked to change links.

This is a lot of damn work for everyone. (AND for years it is possible that old links existing on website pages will generate traffic.) That is a reality and there are many reasons for it, the easiest to explain is that engines and directories have cached the pages those links reside on and may or may not update again.

Some might say that "well if they don't update why does it matter?" Because those pages that are cached might be seen by visitors or might be spidered and cached somewhere else, which might be seen by visiotrs and "can" generate traffic.

If you cloak your links with a database program, or use a php or html redirect page you don't have to worry about it.

For me on many sites I will only have to change my links in one or two places, but on others I will have to do a search and replace and a page by page verification...

For the sites I use the various methods mentioned above the workload is less. as an example, if I use a php redirect file on a site I only have to change the php file for slotocash once and the slotcash download file once since the same file is referenced on all pages where the slotocash link is used.

If you have 60 slotocash links on a site you can change 60 links or one/two.

Regardless, changing links suck and is a lot of damn work....

Rick
Universal4

Disclaimer: I have found the people at Deckmedia to be a good bunch, and I have not asked yet, so I hope they planned that the old links continue to work WAY into the future, but I will schedule to start changing links as soon as I can, just don't ask me to be happy about it....

No you can NOT borrow my coffee cup.

[Smoking]

I use a plug in for most of my WP sites
Simple Link Cloaker

[GFPC]

i have using a /go/ or /visit/ folder works well and you disallow it from robots.txt file.
If the aff program does alter links or shuts down or whatever even if your unsure about he aff links being cached (which they should not) you can use the google url removal tool.

Or sometimes you can even 301 redirect the aff links to another brand.

[universal4]

You can't use the google url remove tool for any engine, directory or scumbag content theif who takes or scrapes your info (and sometimes your link) and republishes it.

Those pages can also be cached at google or other engines and the original webmaster has zero control over that and it is why old links long since taken off websites will continue to generate traffic years later.

Yes gfpc, the method you mentioned is one of the methods I use also.

Rick
Universal4

[TravG]

I didnt use to use anything to do this until the above happened too many times and spent a full day swiching out links. I only use htaccess now to redirect my links and happy I did take the time to do it.

[universal4]

Well I took a few minutes to log in to the new Deckmedia system, at first glance I thought I was gonna be impressed....

...that faded quickly....

The first issue I found (not a big deal but certainly needs fixed) I wanted to change my password.

I sorta missed the birthdate at first and was presented with an error that I needed to be at least 15 years old??? Well I personally think that error log should be changed to 18 to stay on the safe side....

So I go to change the birth date but I can NOT. Maybe the coders consulted the Mayan's at the wrong time of the year but their calandar only has 10 months in it so that wasn't happening....

Ok on to a quick glance at the stas.

I figured I would take a quick look at last month to see if the data looked correct....

....imagine my surprise to find out all campaign data no longer exists....(this was very important to me BEFORE I changed any links)....

I need campaign data for now and the past....every month (ok daily) I look at this to see where I am improving and where I need too keep an eye out for improvement....

And usually at the beginning of every month I look at the same time frame from the year before as well as a general 90 day range concentrating on the campaign data.

If this data will not be available to me, it will be 13 months before I will have any trend data.

I need all data, previous to the change to include clicks and campaigns or I need access to the old stats. No one explained to us that all this data would no longer be available to us, had I known this I would have spent a considerable amount of time in the old stats trying to preserve this data, but as it stands now all I can say is that this will affect my opinion during link changes.

Prior to today I could tell where every single visitor I ever sent to Deckmedia came from, but that is all thrown out the window.

So in my opinion we should fire the Mayans or convice the world to move to a 10 month calendar, and show us our campaign data.

Rick
Universal4

[Smoking]

convice the world to move to a 10 month calendar

won't this make us older?

[universal4]

Whatever was quirky and not allowing me to change the date now seems to work ok and I could change my password.

Although I tried a younger age and it still said I had to be 15...lol

So they musta found the missing months the Mayans hid centuries ago.

Rick
Universal4

[Alicia Deckmedia]

So they musta found the missing months the Mayans hid centuries ago.

Rick
Universal4

LOL thumbs up for the feedback, I enjoyed reading it)
Yes indeed there was an issue with the calendar, we've noticed it before launching the system but there where other prior things our tech team was working on.
Regarding campaign data- did you manage to back up your old reports with us? We've mentioned it in one of our weekly newsletters: "If you need to back up any old reports or data please do so before November 1st 2012."
Thanks for all the notes, honestly it's much appreciated - we continue improving the system with your help and suggestions, please do send us constructive feedback further and keep in touch!

[universal4]

Nope, I lost years and years worth of data, and to say I am a little more than disappointed would be an understatement.

Rick
Universal4

[Alicia Deckmedia]

Sorry to hear that. But even if you missed the note on our newsletters saying you have a month given to save your data, you should have contacted us at that time and get the proper answer to your inquiry.
Please feel free to contact me whenever you need assistance further, I'll be happy to help.
Cheers