I made a redirect file tutorial blog post

[addaminsane]

Hey everyone, i just posted a tutorial on how to create a php redirect for poker affiliates.

feel free to comment on it and correct any mistakes i may have made. I figured that the creation of a redirect is pretty powerful and useful knowledge new affiliates should learn, so i put a bit of thought into it.

[GregW]

Nice work.

[CK]

Hey Adam if you want to edit your post to include the 301 method so they have to options to go by I will gladly sticky this post up. Nice work and thanks for helping others.

[Ozpoker]

Just a quick tip - if you use wordpress and use the global translation plugin - it uses a 2 character code for each langauge like /it/ or /es/ - confusion for readers and comp's alike can occur when your redirect folder is /go/ as it fits the same format.

I tend to use /send/ but it could be anything as long as it's not /go/ or some other 2 character name

[scrawnybob]

thanks for this - doing this has been on my TTD list for ages but not got to

really helpful for those of us that dont code well and need to explain to a coder what we are trying to do

you've saved me a big job and phone calls when I get to sorting this out on my sites ;-)

thanks

cheers SB

[addaminsane]

Hey Adam if you want to edit your post to include the 301 method so they have to options to go by I will gladly sticky this post up. Nice work and thanks for helping others.

Kaus after looking at the 301 method you mentioned i think it may be one of the worst methods possible as their is no means to disallow this link. Google will simply attribute anchor text power to the 301 redirected url. even if there is a nofollow tag attatched, there is no real assurance among the entire webmaster world whether or not that link is beneficial or not...or understanding of how "nofollow" tags interact with a 301

obviously the 301 method is a common tool to maintain url seo when new site structures are introduced to a domain or a site is completely moved.

I think its possible a lot of affiliates may be doing this and be a large contributor to why the highest rankers for "online poker" and other huge keywords are PokerStars and other Venues!...in addition, there are new affiliates who are just straight up dofollowing affiliate links.

I understand that online poker rooms do alot of seo themselves but nothing compares to having loads of relevant sites across a span of unique ips...linking to them 5 or 6 times on any give page in an effort to increase click throughs.

In contrast, the online casino industry is dominated by information sites. I know a few webmasters who dominate the online casino industry with information sites and they use file redirects (disallowed by robots.txt) not 301s

I think my tutorial would probably be better off to say DO NOT 301 redirect a blank file to your affiliate links! Put the redirect WITHIN the file and disallow the containing folder from being crawled via robots.txt!! Yes a 301 accomplishes the same convenience by way of editing all outbound links in one place, but you may be still leaking serp power to the poker sites!!

use a more cautious method... affiliates who are currently using the 301 method should simply remove the 301 redirect from .htaccess and insert a redirect INSIDE their html file that they are already using... this way you don't need to edit any on-page html links within you're site.......and then disallow the crawling of folder containing that file in robots.txt.

If alot of the webmasters currently doing this change there method we could potentially see a shift in serp results that favors information sites for the big keywords and a lot of other organic searches which poker ROOMS may be grabbing from affiliates.

i've been wandering why they've been dominating, i know they've bought out some established sites and straight link to themselves with targeted keyword anchor text, but something surely is supplementing them because there is no way they have enough unique ip links to dominate alot of large sites,

Note*Pokerstars.com, Fulltilt Poker.com CARBONPOKER.COM? are dominating page 1 for "online poker" without having online poker in the domain name. IF you look at pokerstars.com and fulltiltpoker.com they ARE NOT EVEN FULLY ON PAGE OPTIMIZED THAT WELL FOR "ONLINE POKER"! CARBON POKER has their seo fluff all at the bottom of their page!

It really looks like Poker Rooms are receiving GOOGLE BOMBS by way of many improper affiliate linking methods.

These ROOMS are even dominating poker listings...which is a huge site, higher PR, every page is strategically seo optimized, and a lot of affiliate sites are giving them freebie one way links in exchange for a worthless redirected link within their directory.

[addaminsane]

By the way, the redirect method/concept is not just about helping affiliates be more efficient in linking, its also about making an effort to not contribute to the merchants serp performance you are promoting.

It is obviously in the entire poker/casino/gambling affiliate industrys' best interest to increase the odds of sending players to the venues before they go to them directly to play.

Affiliates want to compete with eachother as much as possible with good resources and their own seo ventures. Being in more favorable positions in the serps allows affiliates to be of higher value to the rooms. Its all about facilitating real competition and doing your part to contribute to affiliate value.

i hypothesize that more small and middle affiliates would be way more effectively competing for targeted keywords if:

1. More Affiliates made a habit of properly outlinking to the poker sites with "disallowed" redirect files.
2. More Affiliates reconsidered exchanging links with larger sites that are not giving them seo value in return.

[addaminsane]

well i havn't recieved any replies to the above two posts. Does anyone think it would be a good idea to right a well researched blog post about why affiliates should make an effort to do what they can to not contribute to their merchants serp results?

I don't want to make anyone mad, it would basically be an informative, awareness type post about how online poker affiliate venues, such as the rooms, rake providers etc. are recieving loads of serp power that currently cause them to dominate very competitive terms as well as give them the ability...if they wanted to expand their sites into bigger info'type sites...to dominate/compete for/grab great search engine traffic from many of the webmaster/affiliates who are competing for those hits.

Does anyone think it could potentially be a good post if researched well and presented for awareness? Obviously, if anything i say in the article sounds absurd, people can correct mistakes in the comments or encourage me to edit the post with changes.

[pokeraussie]

Note*Pokerstars.com, Fulltilt Poker.com CARBONPOKER.COM? are dominating page 1 for "online poker" without having online poker in the domain name. IF you look at pokerstars.com and fulltiltpoker.com they ARE NOT EVEN FULLY ON PAGE OPTIMIZED THAT WELL FOR "ONLINE POKER"! CARBON POKER has their seo fluff all at the bottom of their page!

It really looks like Poker Rooms are receiving GOOGLE BOMBS by way of many improper affiliate linking methods.

These ROOMS are even dominating poker listings...which is a huge site, higher PR, every page is strategically seo optimized, and a lot of affiliate sites are giving them freebie one way links in exchange for a worthless redirected link within their directory.

G pushes the big brands in the serps to make their results look more credible. The same thing happens in other big markets. There was a lot of talk regarding Google branding a while back.

[addaminsane]

G pushes the big brands in the serps to make their results look more credible. The same thing happens in other big markets. There was a lot of talk regarding Google branding a while back.

i think if you research it out by looking deeper into the serps for many of the keywords these sites are targeting you will see that there is much more to it than that.

as well also browse around the web and look at many affiliate sites and how they are outlinking to their promoted revenue sources...not just the rooms...but other affiliate lead sites as well

i would basically like to know if anyone thinks it would be a good idea to further research the topic and present a detailed blog post about it, if people think more awareness of outlinking (to revenue sources) would be beneficial to the affiliate industry as a whole.