I did however make some minor changes as follows:

For the .htaccess, I made the redirect go to the recommends directory for the cloak.php file, as I like to keep my root folder as clean as possible. It’s also worth noting that some people may need to include the instruction to turn on rewriting if it isnt already done in their file. So my .htaccess looks like:

(/.htaccess)
#You only the next line once, so if it’s in your file already don’t include it again
RewriteEngine On
# cloak affiliate links
RewriteRule ^recommends/([^./]+)$ recommends/cloak.php?req=$1 [L]

Thats the minor htaccess change done, now onto the cloak.php file, which now sits IN the ‘recommends’ directory along with the cloak.log file. I added some comments to your code so it was easier to see what was happening, and I also changed the date format to (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS) which now includes the time, and is in a format my database can play with at a later stage. My cloak.php now looks like this:

(/recommends/cloak.php)
<?php
$request_id = $_GET[‘req’]; //Get the request string
$myFile = “/PATH/TO/YOUR_SITE/public_html/recommends/cloak.log”; //Set the path to the log file
$refData = $_SERVER[‘HTTP_REFERER’]; //Get Referrer information
$fh = fopen($myFile, ‘a’) or die(“can’t open log file”); //Open the log file for writing
$stringData = date(“Y-m-d H:i:s”).”,”.$request_id.”,”.$refData.”n”; //Concatenate date, request string and referrer information
fwrite($fh, $stringData ); //Write the concatenated data to a new line of the log file
fclose($fh); //Close the file

/*—–Request String Redirections here—–*/
if (strcasecmp ($request_id, “markmason”) == 0) { header( ‘Location: http://www.masonworld.com/‘ );}

if (strcasecmp ($request_id, “google”) == 0) { header( ‘Location: http://www.google.com/‘ );}

if (strcasecmp ($request_id, “docs”) == 0) { header( ‘Location: http://www.google.com/docs‘ ); }

Thats it. Thanks again for the post, and I hope this may help anyone else struggling.

Regards
Vince

I see funny characters in your file — possibly from cut and paste from the blog. I also see that the path to the cloak.log file is not set in the file that you sent me.

I edited the file and I am emailing your a file that I think might work.

Regards,
Mark

Thanks for emailing me that file. Everything works fine now.

Dennis

@Gaje — There are lots of really nice people in the IM niche. If anyone gives you attitude, you should run (do not walk) away.

So, once you get the script installed and working correctly, then I recommend that you always use it. That means that you always use the recommends/product URL in your post.

Just remember to test those links and make sure that you have done it correctly each time (don’t want to miss out on any commissions).

Regards,
Mark

Let’s say that you have a site that you are blogging on — like this one.
It’s url is http://www.masonworld.com

Now let’s say you want to promote a product that you believe in.
For example, I like Josh Spaulding’s Article Marketing Domination.

So, on my site, the URL for Article Marketing Domination is
http://www.masonworld.com/recommends/amd

In the cloak.php script, I have set up “amd” as an alias for the long affiliate link that you need to use if you want to get a commission selling Josh’s AMD report.

Does that help?

So, in your case, you might want to promote Blog Mastermind.
Instead of your current affiliate link of
http://www.blogmastermind.com/affiliates/index.php?af=820857

You could have something like this
http://gajemaster.com/recommends/blogmastermind

This gives you a clean, more pro look to your links. It also theoretically reduces the temptation for someone to see that you’re promoting an affiliate link and “steal” your commission. The idea is that you are less “in your face” with the link. I have no data to support this claim, but people do argue that.

Hope that helps.
Mark

Your comment made me smile.

I would love to help you get this running. Can you tell me where I lost you? Then we can start from there.

Thanks,
Mark

Sometimes it’s better to recommend a product that you believe in and not have you affiliate link shown so that no one thinks you are lying (if that makes sense!!).

Anyway this post has been stored in a safe place for future ref.

Well, I definitely like having all of the links in one file, and I like having the tracking code there. In the end, the result could be similar (assuming you can track with your one-line solution).

Regards,
Mark