Tracking & optimisation · also called URL redirect, tracking redirect, 302 redirect
Redirect
A redirect automatically forwards a browser from one web address to another, often passing through a tracking link that records the click along the way.
Click a link, and before the page appears the browser may be bounced through one or more intermediate addresses. Each bounce is a redirect. Web servers do this with standard instructions (codes 301 and 302 are the common ones), and pages can also do it with a script.
In arbitrage the legitimate use is measurement and routing. A tracker link records the Click ID, then forwards the visitor to the right landing page, perhaps splitting traffic for an A/B test. Many operators avoid redirects on social traffic and track with on-page scripts instead, because every hop adds delay, loses some visitors, and can strip the parameters tracking depends on.
Redirects are also where abuse lives, which is why platforms and feeds scrutinise them. Sending reviewers to one page and users to another is cloaking. Chains of redirects that hide where traffic really came from are a tool of traffic laundering and referrer spoofing. Forwarding a person to a results page they never asked for is zero-click parking or domain redirect traffic territory. Ad platforms expect the final destination to be the one declared, and feeds expect to see the true origin of every visit.
Think of it like this
It is mail forwarding. Useful when you have moved house, and suspicious when a letter passes through five addresses before it arrives.
An example
Say a redirect adds half a second and 4% of visitors give up before the page loads. Of 1,000 paid clicks, 960 arrive. At $0.20 a click the real cost per visitor is $200 / 960 = $0.208.
Related terms
Tracker (campaign tracking platform)
A tracker is software that records every click an arbitrageur buys, matches it to the revenue it later earns, and reports profit by campaign, ad and keyword.
Click ID
A click ID is a unique code an ad platform or tracker attaches to each ad click so that later events can be matched back to that exact click.
Cloaking
Cloaking is showing one version of an ad or page to a platform's reviewers and a different version to real users, in order to hide rule-breaking content.
Landing page (lander)
A landing page is the first page a visitor sees after clicking an ad.
Domain redirect traffic
Domain redirect traffic is visitors who typed or followed a link to an unused domain and were automatically forwarded to an advertiser's page.
Traffic laundering
Traffic laundering is passing low-quality or prohibited traffic through intermediate sites and redirects so it reaches a search feed looking clean and legitimate.