Warning, slightly technical post ahead. Also, I know there are more elegant database driven solutions but this gets the job done quickly without a mysql geek required

I proved in my post A Newbie PPC Campaign - The First 24 Hours that I don’t know how to make money via PPC, however I also found out that I know how to cloak keywords with a redirect that a few emailers wanted to know the details. So here they are:

Overview

We make a unique url on our website for every keyword we use. We make a phony keyword for each keyword we use. We send the merchant the phony keywords, and when we get a sale we just go back and look up the real keyword that created the sale.

What is the Unique URL?

First lets decide on the unique url we want for each keyword. You can purchase a new domain for this or use an existing one. It will look like this:

To redirect a new domain (or domain just for ppc):

www.domain.com?keyword=keyword1
www.domain.com?keyword=keyword2
www.domain.com?keyword=keyword3
www.domain.com?keyword=keyword4
www.domain.com?keyword=keyword5

To redirect all the “unique” urls through one page on a domain your unique urls will look like this:

www.domain.com/mypage.php?keyword=keyword1
www.domain.com/mypage.php?keyword=keyword2
www.domain.com/mypage.php?keyword=keyword3
www.domain.com/mypage.php?keyword=keyword4
www.domain.com/mypage.php?keyword=keyword5

The redirect

This is the code that goes in your index page (for redirecting domains) or on your mypage.php for redirecting a single page.

<?php

$keyword = $_GET["keyword"];

if (strlen($keyword) < 1){$keyword = "nokeyword";}

$url = "http://hjlas.com/click/?s=18269&c=61619&subid=$keyword";
header('Location:' . $url);

?>

Copy and paste that code into your php page. Also replace my affiliate link with whatever affiliate link you want. Just remember to make your subid,pid, or whatever to always say $keyword.

So the script now grabs the keyword from the url, inserts it into the affiliate link, and sends the visitor to the offer page. The only thing we need to know about now is how to send the “phony” keywords to our redirect instead of the actual keywords we bid on.

Creating Phony Keywords

Step 1: In Microsoft Excel (or I use Open Office Calc) place your keywords in column A.

Step 2: Place a unique word in column B with the number one after it. I also try to denote the search engine I’m using. So it might look like Movies1. Autofill this down the column.

You should have a unique phony keyword next to each real keyword.

Step 3: The final step is to put these things into a format that Adcenter will understand (the method is the same for adwords but the formatting is slightly different).

In column C place this formula (replacing domain.com with your domain or redirect page, change the default bid also):

=A1&”**.30****www.domain.com/?keyword=”&B1

That’s all folks

Copy and paste column C into adcenter’s keyword box and you will set your keywords, default bid, and create a unique url for each of your keywords.

When an adcenter clicks on the unique url, our code from above grabs the keyword and redirects the visitor to your affiliate url with the phony keyword in it instead of the real one. When you get a sale just go back to excel and find the line with the phony keyword and the real keyword you paid for will be sitting right next to it.

Maybe a bit over the top for newbies to manipulating keyword lists, programming, etc. But it’s a breeze after you do it a time or two.