Redirect to an affiliate using PHP or JavaScript redirect?

distro_dave

I was asked to introduce a unified self hosted URL-Shortener/Forwarder/Tracking Service for an website that earns money from affiliates. One example I found was one of the bigger german sites for bargains. (mydealz) So I had a look at their way of doing it, and I was quite surprised. From my point of view, the only sensible way to do the forwarding and tracking is using a PHP header redirect, if 301 or 302 in my eyes is mainly a question wether...

Originally asked by Christoph Daum on Stack Exchange (webmasters) (CC BY-SA 3.0).

uphilltech

Great question — answering as the UphillTech team:

I always lean towards a server side redirect for this sort of thing as well. The only possible disadvantage I could see (though I don't consider it one) is that by using server side 301's your affiliate links aren't likely to get indexed in Google. If you don't care about getting your redirect links indexed then it seems to me that a server side redirect is much more reliable and makes a lot more sense in the case you presented.

Full answer by Josh Mountain: https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/a/65333 (CC BY-SA 3.0).

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