Free Stuff: Redirection Services  

Here is a selection of redirection services. What is a redirection service?
These allow you to create a "better" domain name (usually a subdomain within
a domain name) than the one you've got. Thus, you could create
"clickto.com/internettips" or "internettips.clickto.com" or something like
that.

Why would you want to do this? Perhaps your site is hosted on a free server
with a URL such as
"http://www.hostingcompany.com/user/silconvalley/ab546/index.htm". This is
very difficult for your visitors to remember so you could use a redirection
service to make it easier.

Why do these companies provide free redirection services? Because they want
to sell advertising, of course. In return for the service, your visitors
will be shown an ad in one of the following ways (depending upon the service
terms and conditions).

- In a pop up window when the page loads

- On a delay page that appears before the user is redirected to your page

- You can choose a position on your page that you would like to place the
banner

- A 88x31 button somewhere on your page

- A banner on top of your page.

There are some good reasons NOT to use this kind of service, however.

- The names are usually considered "tacky" or unprofessional by many people.

- You must show additional advertisements to use the services, or pay to
remove the ads. If you are going to pay, why not just get a domain name?

- The search engines really frown on these domain names, since they are
often used in attempts to spam the search engines (by making a site look
like two or more sites and thus getting listed more often).

- Since the companies are usually advertising based, they tend to be
unstable. Thus, you could heavily promote the redirected URL only to find it
suddenly gone.

Some popular redirection services are listed below.

Atmypage
http://www.atmypage.com/
These guys will give you "you.atmypage.com" in return for an advertisement
in your choice of format.

BeamTo
http://beam.to/index.asp
BeamTo offers "you.beamto.com" in return for an ad.

Bravenet Web Services
http://www.bravenet.com/
Offers the following redirected URLs: clix.to, clik.to, wakeup.to, trax.to,
trak.to, get-me.to, takeoff.to, dear.to, slingshot.to, destined.to,
devoted.to, committed.to, continue.to, embark.to

Short URL
http://www.shorturl.com/
Provides the URLs listed below. All you need to do is include a small 88x31
button on your site. You may choose one of the following URLs:
you.shorturl.com, you.2ya.com, you.vze.com, you.filetap.com,
you.mirrorz.com, you.alturl.com, you.spyw.com, you.funurl.com

Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets at
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