How To Forward a Domain

When Shoemoney launched Shoemoney System on Clickbank, I decided to created a separate domain name to promote it. Most affiliate marketers just promote the link to the sales page using the affiliate ID/link provided to them. However, there are several advantages to setting up a separate domain name and forwarding it to the sales page, especially if you’re using PPC advertising.

The Ultimate Cloak

Unless I tell you, it’s impossible to tell if a domain is just a normal site or a cloaked affiliate landing page. Whenever possible, you should always cloak your affiliate links to prevent lost commission by people typing in the URL instead of clicking on the link. For example, my affiliate link to Shoemoney System is http://www.shoemoneysystem.com/secret-code.php?c=ttznet. Instead of clicking the link, some will simply type shoemoneysystem.com into their browser and bypass my affiliate link. Yes, there are people who’ll do that and it will cost you money.

Sometimes, people do that thinking they’re doing you a favor. Have you ever typed in the URL of a Google ad instead of clicking on it? Many people do this thinking they’re saving money for the advertiser, when in fact the advertiser was an affiliate and by typing in the URL, they may have saved him 10 cents but cost him a big affiliate commission.

Google AdWords requires the final URL be displayed at the end of the ad. Often time, this is just advertiser’s landing page without your affiliate ID. If someone just types the URL, he’ll end up on the advertiser’s page but you won’t get a commission if he buys something since your affiliate ID got bypassed. Setting up a separate domain name prevents this problem. If fact, you want them to type in the domain name now instead of clicking on the ad. This way you save money on advertising and make an affiliate commission!

How To Forward a Domain

I use GoDaddy to handle all my domain names. One reason for using them is their awesome domain manager, which allows me to forward a domain name to another site and cloak it. To forward a domain, log into the domain manager of your GoDaddy account, check the domain you want to admin and click the forward button.

How To Forward a Domain

Enter the affiliate URL you want the domain to forward to, choose the Forward with Masking option and enter the information for the title, description and keyword tags. Click OK and the domain should forward to the affiliate landing page within an hour.

Once the domain has been forwarded, you can send traffic to it using whatever means available to you (blog, social media, PPC, PPV, etc). The person clicking or typing in the link won’t see any hint that the landing page has your affiliate ID built into it. No more lost commission due to typed in traffic!

Another advantage of this set up is eventually, Google will index the page in its search engine so you could be getting free search engine traffic in the future.

If your domain provider doesn’t offer cloaked forwarding, you can create a new site for the domain name and then pull in the affiliate landing page using a full page iFrame. Here’s the code for that.

<html>
<head>
<title>Shoemoney System – How To Make Money Online </title>
<META name=”description” content=”Shoemoney System will teach you exactly how to make money online”><META name=”keywords” content=”Shoemoney, Shoemoney System, Shoemoney.com, make money online, Jeremy Schoemaker, video tutorials, how to videos, make money blogging, facebook marketing, internet marketing, google adwords, shoemoney media, shoe, elite retreat, google check, shoemoney canada, how to make money, money, free, video, videos, marketing, internet, viral  marketing”>
</head>
<frameset rows=”100%,*” border=”0″>
<frame src=”http://www.shoemoneysystem.com/?c=ttznet” frameborder=”0″ />
<frame frameborder=”0″ noresize />
</frameset>
</html>

Change the information to whatever product you’re promoting. The problem with setting up a separate site with a full page iFrame is you will have to pay for hosting the site. GoDaddy doesn’t charge to forward a domain with masking to another site.

Ideal for Clickbank Products

Forwarded domains are ideal for Clickbank products because most of the advertisers won’t have any issue with you using their names. If you try to create a domain name with Dell in it to sell Dell products, you can expect an email from Dell’s lawyers (you can’t even bid on the Dell keyword).

If you do plan to set up a cloaked domain with the advertiser’s name in it, I would still ask before doing it. Like I said, most will not have any issues with it but it’s better to be safe than sorry.