Using yoursite.com/nice_links for promotions

admin — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 09:20:04 +0000

When doing a promotion or sending links by e-mail, it’s nicer to have short, speaking links like yoursite.com/discount instead of the normal link monsters. You might implement this on your server as folder name (polluting your folder structure) or use the htaccess file (where a mistake can kill the entire server).

But I suggest a simpler solution: Use a 404 error page script.

Most hosting companies allow you to specify a custom 404 (“not found”) error page. This page can also be a script. And the script can check if the requested URL is your promotion code and then redirect to your real page.

This can also keep you from typing (or writing on paper) long product URLs. I have set up shortcuts for all my products. If I want someone to have the link of the 1-Click Duplicate Delete for Outlook page, I can simply write this link:
easy2sync.com/1cddo
Instead of:
http://www.easy2sync.com/en/produkte/1-Click-Duplicate-Delete-Outlook.php
(Which is so long that some mail clients print into 2 lines, effectively breaking it.)

Here’s the PHP script for that:


Error!....</pre>

</article>
<article>
<h1>Strange AdWords status problems</h1>
<p>admin — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 09:09:35 +0000</p>
<p>Okay, so I finally found a way of contacting AdWords. I had problems with two new ads. One has been under review for more than a week, another was approved, but had zero impressions.</p>
<p>For both cases, I got a meaningless standard text, explaining their policy.  And both times the ad suddenly worked. So, something was definitely <a href="http://blog.softwarepromotions.com/index.php/google-adwords-the-machine-is-broken-please-fix-it-2009-12-30/">broken</a> and is now fixed, but Google doesn’t even bother to say so…</p>

</article>
<article>
<h1>Awkward help from GoogleAdwords</h1>
<p>admin — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:37:51 +0000</p>
<p>Google’s always amazing when it comes to finding the right pages. I wanted to contact then, so I searched the official German Adwords Help for “Kontakt”.</p>
<p>Places 8+9 were:</p>
<p></p>
<p>If you don’t speak German: unmöglich=impossible. You get the rest, I think…</p>
<p>So, the AdWords help was helpful for me, too. I gave up contacting them. Less money for Google…</p>

</article>
<article>
<h1>A website navigation mistake</h1>
<p>admin — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:53:58 +0000</p>
<p>I’m currently thinking about buying a new computer and came across Dell’s website. Here’s the menu that they presented to me to choose from:</p>
<p></p>
<p>Don’t know about you, but I was completely lost here. Would I want a Studio or and XPS computer? No idea. Probably the folks at Dell know their products too well and sometimes forget how it must look like for their (first-time) customers.</p>
<p>I left Dell’s website (without bothering to ‘learn’ what they mean) and revisited my own site to see if I did it any better. And was surprised to see that I made the same mistake  (a bit) with the product names.</p>
<p>Some of my product names (like 1-Click Duplicate Delete for Outlook) are pretty clear. Others (like ReplyButler) can leave you guessing. A customer might be interested in it, but only if I make it easy for him to understand what the product is for.</p>
<p>So here’s the way I found to make it clearer:</p>
<p></p>
<p>It’s still very brief, but at least tells you enough about it to decide whether you might be interested or not.</p>

</article>
<article>
<h1>Affiliate Fraud! – Is it?</h1>
<p>admin — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 12:38:01 +0000</p>
<p>I was recently contacted by fellow software developer <a href="http://www.vboffice.net">Michael Bauer</a>, who called my attention to a certain website. That site is an affiliate of mine and I thought that it was my best affiliate.</p>
<p>A deeper look however showed that the website placed the usual affiliate cookie not just on the pages displaying my software, but on all. Each and every page that I visited (it’s a big site), had the cookie-setting-code. And not just for me, but for a number of other software vendors, too. The cookies expire in half a year.</p>
<p></p>
<p>In other words: Every person that visits any page of that website, would bring the website owner a provision if the visitor should decide to buy any software from any of the listed vendors within the next 6 month.</p>
<p>Previously I had thought, because of the sales, that this was my best affiliate. Now however, I have my doubts how many sales he *really* generated and for how many he just got the money.</p>
<p><strong>Is this okay?</strong></p>
<p>I don’t think so. Is this a violation of the terms or even illegal behavior? Well, so far Share-it (who handles the affiliate system) says that this okay and that I’m free to terminate my cooperation with the affiliate.</p>
<p>I’m no expert (even though I’m probably involuntarily on the road to become one, sigh) on this topics but on this seems similar to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookie_stuffing">Cookie-Stuffing</a>, so I won’t give up so easily on this and post updates on this.</p>
<p>But untill then, if you have an affiliate program, you should <strong>check your affiliates’ websites</strong>, especially those that you think are your best ones.</p>

</article>
<article>
<h1>New blog, new log, new look</h1>
<p>admin — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:03:36 +0000</p>
<p>The default wordpress theme really is boring. So I’m using my <a href="http://fotothemes.itsth.com/theme_farorasca.php">Faro Rasca theme</a> for a start. It’s a photo from a lighthouse on Teneriffe, Spain.</p>

</article>
</main></body></html>

>devblog_ » marketing

Using yoursite.com/nice_links for promotions