Question for LL owners - meta refresh

[Jel]

I'm toying with the idea of getting a domain purely to set up pages that meta refresh to sponsors, for ease of changing linkcodes, so

sponsor a ---> all links point to the relevant page on the domain

and so on, for all my sponsors. I realise google frowns upon meta refreshes, that's not a problem, the domain will be used purely so I don't have to go through thousands of pages if a sponsor changes processors for example (which I'm currently doing, hence the idea).

Using a FPA landing page doesn't appeal to me, I saw terrible results when I tried that with one of my sponsors, I feel because of the url being nothing like the sponsors name.

I need to know whether the mouseover can still state the sponsor name, technically it isn't going directly to the sponsor, although of course as soon as the page refreshes it will.

Thoughts?

[Linkster]

I can see two problems - the first being that I doubt many LL owners click sponsor links very much when reviewing SO most wouldnt even know you were doing it.
Second though, a much different problem - would be that I believe you would see a decline in signups and clicks to your sponsor as ther are a lot of surfers that use settings that would allow a refresh - but other than that I cant see a big problem with it - of course there will be a few LL owners that will question its use as it could also be used "in other ways"

[Jel]

Thanks Linkster,

Didn't think of the surfers that have refresh disabled. On that note, I'll probably not bother then, thanks for pointing that out Coulda been a long job swapping all those then having to swap back lol

[Greenguy]

I agree with Linkster

[Surfn]

I'm one of the reviewers that clicks on all links. If I noticed a different banner each time a page loaded I would reject the site most likely.

[Jel]

That's great Surfn, not sure how my banners would be different every time the page loaded though :p

Thanks for your points all, decided to go against that and just carry on manually changing codes (Am I glad I dont have to change banners and sponsors - I do not envy Mr. Yum!)

Kinda funny going through my sites I done when I first started out, I must honestly and truly give you guys big thanks for listing such terrible looking sites!

[Halfdeck]

Personally, I link to a non-existent page, e.g. "www.domain.com/goto/welivetogether/" and php redirect.

.htaccess translates /goto/welivetogether into /clicktracker.php?paysiteid=welivetogether.

Then clicktracker.php counts hits, records referrer url, IP, etc then redirects to a sponsor tour.

To change codes, I just open up phpmyadmin. 1 folder, one php file, and 1 htaccess, and one subdomain (I didn't feel like paying for a domain for tracking/managing clickthrus).

[Jel]

Hi Halfdeck

OK that sounds good, what is the difference with clicktracker.php redirecting, and a meta refresh? If a surfer has meta refresh disabled, does that also disable that php redirect?

[Halfdeck]

Originally Posted by Jel

what is the difference with clicktracker.php redirecting, and a meta refresh? If a surfer has meta refresh disabled, does that also disable that php redirect?

The great thing about php is its server side so nothing client-side I know of can disable it.

There was a thread regarding this a month back, but here's the simplest php code:

<?php

header("location:http://www.cnn.com/");

?>

As a test, try "stats.nastyxvids.com/visit/" and type whatever paysite minus spaces and see where it takes you (e.g. "http://stats.nastyxvids.com/visit/kellymadison/") Should work for at least a few thousand paysites.