Do you refer website visitors to a page called www.boatsgalore/woodenboats/oarstomatch . URL's of that length or longer are sometimes broken in advertisements and emails. You may have an affiliate link www.discountboatprices/yourname.. This link is easily altered. Someone could replace yourname with therename and take you out to he picture Or the yourname suffix could be removed and any business conducted would be between the company and not you. You can easily redirect a link.
Problems like those above can be addressed in a number of ways. One of the simplest and quickest way is to use an online link cloaking service. TinyURLDOTcom has been a popular link shrinker for a few years. BudUrlDOTcom is also available. Bud URL also has a click tracking service. Customized links are available from both sites. TinyURLDOTcom/custom. There are more link shrinker sites available.
( be sure and put a period in place of DOT),
While link shrinker sites give you a very quick and painless redirect, consider that those redirects remain working only as long as that particular stays online. The redirect sites could also change their policy and possible charge for redirects or direct their business in other directions. I am not saying any of the above would happen, but, it could. All your promotions with that shrunk URL in it is now no longer a working link.
Another way to redirect a link that has been popular with webmasters savvy with html is the HTML redirect. Some times this is referred to as META refresh. Here is the code:
The part that does the redirecting is content+”0;url+http://www.the-domain-you-want-to-redirect-toDOTcom”> (use a period in place of DOT)
The zero before the url is the number of seconds to wait before redirecting. This can be any number of seconds to your choosing.
Another popula rway to redirect a link is the 301 redirect using .htaccess.. A .htacess redirect is recommended as it is convenient to manage as it can be used to redirect one page or an entire website. The code is added to the .htacess file.
I am going to direct you to a site that provides a lot of discussion and examples, www.tamingthebeastDOTnet/articles3/spiders-301-redirect.htm Replace the DOT in above url with a period.
Most web hosts can provide a redirect link. If you plan to stay with your web host this is another good way to provide a redirect.
The above listed ways to redirect a link are not the only ways to provide a redirect, but, these should take care of the needs of most of us. They all are useful. The website url services may not be a good choice for a long term cloak or redirect. Due to the ease of obtaining them, there use in a short term need is hard to beat. Especially the one with a click tacking service. The HTML redirect or the META refresh as it is sometimes referred to is still a good way to redirect. It is a little more involved that the .htacces or even the php redirect. The php redirect is another good way. For me anyway it involves a greater degree of difficulty.
The most popular way to redirect a link with webmasters seems to be the .htaccess redirect.
