How to post a normal Link that hides the referral information?
By VotreAmie
@VotreAmie (3028)
United States
May 5, 2007 7:00pm CST
I have seen a discussion here on mylot where the person puts a normal link to a website but when you click on it or even copy and paste it shows the complete link with the referral information.
For example: on the discussion it only reads: http://www.site.com but when you click on it you will have this in the address: http://www.site.com/pages/index.php?refid=
That is a referral link but you don't see that on the discussion. Even when you copy and paste it still does that. I was amazed when I saw that and I played with the link a little on the site to see what it does. Here is what I found: you copy the link, you open a new explorer page, you paste the link in the address bar. Of course it shows the link with the referral information. BUT here is what it amazing: you remove the part with the referral link and it still doesn't let you do that. It ads the referral link automatically. Now isn't that something? I am really curious to know how to do that.
Do you know how to do it? Thanks!
1 person likes this
4 responses
@re08dz (1941)
• Australia
6 May 07
There are many link cloaking programs around the place, of many different varieties. Some are free, some not. For example I have one that can change the url - so if I have a referral url for example I can change it so that the link becomes mysite.com/name of program (or anything else I might want to call it) others will do what you suggest (though they may well cost quite a bit of money)
Then there's places like tinyurl.com that just change the url completely for you
1 person likes this
@re08dz (1941)
• Australia
6 May 07
No sorry I don't know any that will do that for free. The one I use which turns it into mysite/name was free as a part of a program I'm a member of. Or there is another that I have yet to try but I'm not sure how it actually works yet (I will take a look at it one of these days I have it sitting on my computer :-) )
I'm guessing though that since this particular one you're talking about seems a bit more invovled there's a good chance it's not free
1 person likes this
@VotreAmie (3028)
• United States
6 May 07
Thank you re08dz. I know about the tiny url thing. But this one is different. You only see www.site.com while in fact it's www.site.com/refferalinfo.
Do you know a free program that can do that? Thanks!
@VotreAmie (3028)
• United States
6 May 07
Thank you Takuyar it must be that but I still don't understand this bb code. I will have to look it up on the internet. Thanks!
@re08dz (1941)
• Australia
6 May 07
That BB code is often used in forums - much like an anchor text where you put it in brackets. (Sorry I can't do the code example properly cause it keeps messing up)
Actually thinking about it - while it's a good chance a link cloaker was used - if it's an anchor text once you go to that page a cookie was no doubt set which is why after removing the referral part of the url it still comes up when you go back to it.
If you hold your mouse over the link can see the full url in your browswer window? I use firefox and if I scroll over a url the actual link shows up in the bottom of the screen.
1 person likes this
@VotreAmie (3028)
• United States
6 May 07
No if you hold the mouse over the URL you don't see the full address. You must be right. This has to be a paying one. Thank you!
@kathy77 (7486)
• Australia
6 May 07
Well in fact if you post a referral link that is violating the rules on mylot if you want to tell others about a site where you would like to invite other people then tell them all you can about it but do not submit the referral link what you can do is to ask them to contact you through your private message this is the right way to do it.
1 person likes this
@VotreAmie (3028)
• United States
6 May 07
Thank you for this information hiryan. This is also interesting. How do you do that?
