: Why do some webmasters avoid putting direct links on their pages? I've seen this more than often in many websites, that the webmaster avoids putting direct links on the page, instead they use

@Lee4591628

Some websites do this in order to change the links into affiliate links or similar.

This way, for example, any link that a forum members posts to amazon will allow you get a piece of the action in the case that an item is bought.

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@Ravi8258870

Tracking is often the reason why links are redirected this way. Another reason that is common is to make implementing referral links easier. For example, if you can get a commission from a retailer using a referral link, you'll want to replace this link with the referral link before the user lands on their website. Suppose in 6 months time you want to change the referral link, you are no longer an affiliate or you sign up a new retailer, then you'd need to check potentially thousands of links on your website to update. Having everything run through a "redirector" may make maintenance a little easier.

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@Cody1181609

One possibility is anonymizing/hiding the links. Not everybody cares to show up in referer listings.

If the redirect URL is on the same domain, some sites also use this kind of setup in order to show an intermediate page telling you you're leaving their site. This is sometimes due to legal demands and they'll include disclaimers they're not responsible for third-party content and such.

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@Kimberly868

It's done primarily for tracking purposes, and the format you describe is normally seen when the link is on a site like Faceebook or Twitter - i.e. the owner of www.example.com.
Without this redirection they'd have no way of tracking links so the owner of www.example.com uses this format to see where outgoing links end up. Reasons why you want to track:


Making sure that the user of your service is adhering to your terms and conditions. You might only allow a certain number of links to be served.
Analysing where people go after visiting your site.
Making sure that you don't link to "unsuitable" sites (e.g. porn, mp3 downloads, etc.)

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