Those long, ugly URLS….

August 27, 2008

If you use WebMarketingMagic (1ShoppingCart) for your online business, you’ve probably dealt with the long string of characters they force you to use you product links, opt-ins, etc. Ever wish they were a little more elegant?


Get the Flash Player to see this player.

A friend of mine who uses WebMarketingMagic for his shopping cart recently asked this common question:

“My shopping cart produces some long, ugly URL’s that I need to put in emails and publications. Is there any way to shorten them?”

These generated links could be product “buy” links, Ad-tracker links, Autoresponder opt-in links, etc.

For example, a product “buy link” might look like this:

http://www.webmarketingmagic.com/SecureCart/SecureCart.aspx?mid=499D638B-5DDE-
476D-A313-CED23C8F7E5C&pid=a948e2a6851e6c57afebfe92fcd0e1ed

Not a very sleek, sexy URL. A more attractive link, which could be added to any email or print material, would be something like:

www.hamprollc.com/product1

The answer to the “can it be done” question is YES! But not from within your shopping cart system. The secret is to “mask” these links by creating a file on your website that will forward people to these ugly (but necessary) links. Here’s the steps to do it yourself:

1. Open up Notepad, or your favorite text/HTML editor

2. Enter the following text:

<html>
<head>
<title>You Page Title Goes Here</title>
<meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=iso-8859-1″>
<meta http-equiv=”refresh” content=”0;URL=YOUR LONG UGLY URL GOES HERE
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>

(note: enter your own “ugly” link in the indicated place)

3. Save the file as index.html, and upload (FTP) it to where you want the link to be. In my example, I’m moving it to www.hamprollc.com/product1/.

4. That’s it! Now when someone clicks this nice, short link, they are forwarded to the correct buy link!

Try it out: www.hamprollc.com/product1

..

Written by Dave · Filed Under "How To" Guides, 1ShoppingCart, Equipment, Info Marketing, Million Dollar Ideas, Online Tools, Videos, Websites 

Comments

Got something to say?