In the case of controlling what the person sees of their browser tackle bar, URL masking, additionally referred to as area or hyperlink masking, is a good tactic that any website can use. Doing so permits you to higher management what the person sees when viewing your website.
This will likely assist enhance your web site’s privateness and safeguard vital info. Nevertheless, it isn’t all constructive. As you would possibly anticipate, doing this could hurt your search engine marketing as you might be deliberately giving out incorrect info to any search engine bots.
As such, every person must weigh the professionals and cons of URL masking earlier than deciding whether it is proper for his or her web site. Naturally, there is no such thing as a appropriate reply because it comes all the way down to what your web site is making an attempt to realize.
Right this moment, I’ll cowl what URL masking is, tips on how to use it in WordPress, and when you ought to.
What Is URL Masking?
In easy phrases, URL masking permits a website to load one other web page’s info whereas displaying a distinct web page’s URL.
In much less easy phrases, URL masking is a type of redirection the place the person is redirected to a different web page’s content material, however the URL itself doesn’t replicate this. It’s good for displaying your URL it doesn’t matter what web page the person views.
Thus, it’s usually used for advertising functions if you need your principal URL on full show, or if you need to conceal the URL, the data is coming from.
As an illustration, some affiliate entrepreneurs will use URL masking to cover the actual fact the person goes by way of a selected affiliate company or referral quantity.
There are a number of varieties of URL masking, so let’s cowl them.
Area Masking
Area masking is a technique during which a website or subdomain directs customers to a different URL in an effort to cover the unique URL or to simplify the URL being displayed by shortening it to make it extra user-friendly.
You see this very often as an Amazon affiliate or whereas utilizing providers comparable to Bitly.
JavaScript Redirection
A JavaScript redirection is a technique that takes place when a person accesses an internet site, a JavaScript can be executed that redirects the person to a different location whereas maintaining the unique URL seen within the browser.
Server-side Scripting
JavaScript will not be the one possibility you should utilize. Builders can arrange server-side scripts utilizing PHP, ASP, and extra to load a distinct web page’s content material when a URL is accessed with out altering the displayed URL.
Proxy Masking
Proxy masking is a method the place a proxy server is used to fetch one other web page’s info to show on the unique web page with out altering the URL tackle. The request is made the second the person accesses the URL which prompts the proxy server to start.
URL Rewriting
URL Rewriting works by enhancing the .htaccess file in WordPress to switch the URL construction. The aim is to assign a URL to the content material from one other web page, that means the URL stays the identical when viewing a distinct piece of content material.
Body Masking
Body masking is a method that makes use of an HTML body (iframe) to show a distinct web page’s content material with out altering the URL. It makes it appear to be the content material on the display screen belongs to the URL being displayed.
Why Use URL Masking?
There are plenty of methods to realize URL masking, however the huge query is why an internet site would need to do that within the first place. There are a number of key explanation why to do that, however their significance depends closely on the web site itself.
Listed here are a few of the main explanation why it’s possible you’ll need to think about using URL masking in WordPress:
Enhance Model Recognition
One of many principal makes use of of URL masking is to make sure that the person is aware of the content material they’re viewing is out of your model. The most effective methods to realize that is by ensuring that the URL consists of your model title.
Sadly, this could generally get misplaced as customers discover a website and find yourself viewing very lengthy URLs that make it tough to find out the place the content material originates from. For instance, take into account your homepage URL which is normally https://www.YourDomain.com.
Then take into account what occurs if you go deeper into the web site. The URL will would possibly look one thing like this:
https://www.YourDomain.com/Class/WordPress-URL-Masking/aghebhqsdgyihedbn
Not solely is that this hyperlink not one thing somebody would share on social media, however by the top of it, they’re prone to neglect your area title. Because of this, URL masking is a well-liked advertising tactic when performed in a strategy to decrease search engine marketing harm.
Hides Affiliate Hyperlinks
Many web sites will use plugins that conceal affiliate hyperlinks from customers to keep away from making it apparent they’re making an attempt to make a fee on the sale. Whereas I don’t advocate doing this, as it’s a bit unethical, URL masking is one other means of reaching the identical outcome.
Basically, when an affiliate hyperlink is adopted, you need to discover that the top of the URL normally accommodates the Affiliate ID. This can be a lengthy string of letters, symbols, and numbers that could be a lifeless giveaway that it’s an affiliate hyperlink.
Thus, by masking the URL, the Affiliate ID is now not seen, and customers might not understand it’s an affiliated internet tackle.
Once more, I don’t advocate this as a result of it’s a gray space legally. In the US, if you’re being profitable from affiliate hyperlinks, you might be required to make it clear they’re an affiliate hyperlink. Apart from, in lots of circumstances, customers usually tend to make a purchase order in the event that they realize it helps the positioning.
The identical logic applies to different monitoring codes for analytical instruments. Many websites could have hyperlink monitoring that may seize how a person interacts with a web page. Some websites attempt to conceal this as a result of they need probably the most natural expertise from a person.
Once more, hiding monitoring info will not be moral, and a few customers will keep away from websites that do that.
Improves Privateness Safety
Usually talking, if you create an internet site and register it with WHOIS, your info turns into publicly obtainable. Whereas this isn’t a giant deal usually, some customers need to maintain their private info non-public.
Or a minimum of as non-public as info can get in a public house.
Area masking can conceal delicate info and change it with a website masking service. In lots of circumstances, you should utilize these providers at no cost as it’s a quite common follow amongst website homeowners that worth privateness.
That stated, there are premium providers that supply extra in-depth safety, however that could be a subject for one more day.
Conceal the Use of Subdomains
Many builders will make the most of subdomains to create content material for a selected subject. Whereas this may help present builders with extra choices, it could actually additionally make the person expertise really feel fragmented. URL masking is an answer to this drawback.
As an alternative of leaving the positioning you might be on, URL masking permits you to simply show info on the subdomain with out truly leaving the principle website. This lets you get the advantages of utilizing completely different instruments in your subdomain with out the URL mess it creates.
Simply keep in mind that subdomains are handled in another way by engines like google.
As such, their use can dilute the authority of your principal website if used incorrectly. This could simply create duplicate content material issues for the positioning, so keep vigilant and take a look at how Google is rating your content material in Search Console.
Issues with URL Masking
As I’ve identified already, there are some main drawbacks to utilizing URL masking. As such, many websites will truly keep away from utilizing it completely for a few of these causes, which isn’t a nasty alternative.
Listed here are a few of the principal issues websites will encounter when utilizing URL Masking:
Complicated For Customers
We’ve talked rather a lot about how URL masking may be helpful for advertising, however the fact is that there’s a a lot greater drawback that entrepreneurs face and that’s shareability. Give it some thought, if the URL displayed will not be the content material they’re viewing, how do they share it?
Effectively, merely put, they don’t. Customers will usually share the URL of their browser, which can result in one other location.
Clearly, this hurts any probability of the content material a person is taking a look at from being shared on social media websites. Nevertheless, sharing is simply half of the issue. What if the person simply needs to bookmark that web page?
As an illustration, let’s say you personal a cooking website, and the person is taking a look at a recipe they need to make tomorrow. Naturally, they bookmark the web page to allow them to come again to it. The subsequent day, after they use that bookmark, it doesn’t result in the recipe.
This could create a irritating person expertise as a result of the person could have hassle discovering what they had been beforehand taking a look at as a result of the true URL was hidden from them. As such, this isn’t an important possibility for many websites.
URL Masking Damages search engine marketing
Customers will not be the one ones negatively impacted by URL masking. Search engine bots additionally don’t like being deceived by utilizing a distinct URL for the content material displayed. Every URL has its personal authority and rank for the content material being proven.
Naturally, when a single URL is displaying content material from different pages, that disrupts how the authority is distributed.
Nevertheless, the a lot greater drawback is that search engine bots will decide that the content material is duplicate. In spite of everything, the content material that’s being displayed does have its personal URL and a search engine bot will ultimately discover it.
Thus, when the content material is detected twice, it’s categorized as duplicate content material, which can damage your rankings considerably.
Nevertheless, these issues are the least of your issues in comparison with this subsequent one. Google can take away your website from showing in searches if it thinks that you’re making an attempt to deceive customers with the URL masking.
If this occurs, there is no such thing as a getting back from it. It’s a dying sentence, which is why most web sites will keep away from utilizing URL masking.
URL Masking Can Harm Your Status
So, one factor I failed to say in the advantages of URL masking is that it’s an effective way to rip-off your customers. Clearly, this isn’t a constructive factor, and over time, websites that use URL masking have gotten a nasty status.
Because of this, customers who can acknowledge URL masking usually suppose the positioning is making an attempt to rip-off them, which ends up in them not utilizing it.
And as soon as customers begin associating your website with scamming, no matter whether or not it’s true, your status can be completely broken. From the person’s perspective, you might be deceiving them in regards to the URL being displayed, thus you may make it appear to be an official web page.
That is why URL masking is extensively utilized by rip-off websites. They’ll create an official-looking URL and show actual content material from official pages and trick you on the final second throughout a sign-up course of the place they steal your info.
The right way to Carry out URL Masking in WordPress
I discussed earlier the entire methods you possibly can obtain URL masking. Nevertheless, I’m not going to cowl all of them as most are a bit too tough for customers or are prone to trigger issues to your website if performed incorrectly.
As an alternative, I’m going to cowl two of the easier methods to do that in WordPress. The primary means is by enhancing the index.php file and the second is by enhancing the .htaccess file. It’s price stating {that a} typo may mess up your web site.
As such, I strongly advocate making a backup of your website earlier than following this tutorial. It will guarantee you possibly can restore your web site if a mistake is made.
Methodology 1: Utilizing the Content material Masks Plugin
The Content material Masks plugin is an easy strategy to masks content material in WordPress. It’s far simpler than every other methodology and simply requires getting into the URL addresses into the plugin. It basically embeds the content material from one other web page on the web page you need it to show.
As such, this could realistically solely take a couple of minutes to finish. That stated, you’ll have to set this up for each submit or web page you need, thus, it may take extra time if you’re including URL masking to plenty of content material.
Begin off by looking the plugin listing for Content material Masks and set up and activate the plugin.
With the plugin activated, go to the submit or web page the place you need to masks the URL. Scroll down under the editor and you will see the Content material Masks Settings part on the backside. That is the place all of the magic occurs.
It’s best to see a giant textual content field for the Content material Masks URL. Enter the URL of the content material you need to show on this submit or web page.
Subsequent to this textual content field is a change that’s set to Disabled by default. Flip the change to Enabled.
To the correct of the textual content field, you possibly can choose what sort of masking methodology you need to use. The plugin gives three choices. The primary is to obtain the content material instantly. The second is to make use of an iframe (HTML). And the third is to make use of a redirection.
All three strategies will obtain the identical outcome. The one distinctive possibility is for the obtain methodology, which can ask you to decide on a cache expiration time. In any other case, the tactic you select has no additional settings.
Under this, you will see a collection of checkboxes that mean you can select which person roles won’t see the content material masking. By default, they’re all unselected. If you’d like a selected person function to not have the ability to view the masked content material, merely examine the field for his or her function.
Under this, you can too select if you wish to masks the content material based mostly on whether or not the person is logged in or out. Once more, simply examine the field that fits your wants. Go away each unchecked if you don’t want a situation.
Lastly, on the backside are two bigger textual content bins. That is the place extra skilled customers can place header and footer scripts respectively. Until you understand what you might be doing, you possibly can ignore these.
Upon getting configured the whole lot, you’ll want to save the modifications to the submit or web page to finalize it.
And that’s it. If you happen to go to the web page, you need to see a distinct web page’s content material seem beneath the identical URL. Simply keep in mind that when you chosen any person roles, you need to take a look at out a number of views to ensure it’s working appropriately.
Merely repeat this on as many posts or pages as you need. In case you are not a fan of utilizing a plugin, the following methodology is for you.
Methodology 2: Modifying the .htaccess File
This methodology is the guide method to URL masking in WordPress. Realistically, there are a number of methods to drag this off, to maintain issues easy, let’s take a look at the simplest means to do that, enhancing the .htaccess file.
As soon as you might be within the cPanel, find the Information part and choose the File Supervisor possibility.
Upon doing so, you need to see a listing of the entire recordsdata saved in your server. Begin by deciding on the public_html listing on the left facet of the display screen. That is the place the entire recordsdata associated to your WordPress set up are situated.
If you happen to look by way of the recordsdata inside the public_html listing, you need to spot the .htaccess file. Proper-click on the .htaccess file and choose the edit possibility.
Vital Notice: It’s doable that your web site doesn’t have a .htaccess file. Generally the file doesn’t generate, so if you don’t see this file you must take a minute and generate it. This tutorial will assist you to do exactly that.
A small window will seem reminding you that one thing can go unsuitable, and as a precaution, you need to create a backup of your web site earlier than making any modifications. Click on on the “Edit” button to proceed.
It will carry you to the file the place you possibly can edit it. Scroll all the way down to the underside of the .htaccess file and add the next traces of code:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^displayedpath/?$ /filepath/authentic/
All you must do is edit the second line and enter the file path for the content material you need to get replaced and the file path for the content material you need to seem. Since that is particular to your website, I can’t let you know the file path to make use of.
With a little bit trial and error, you need to have the ability to get it working in a couple of minutes. The tip outcome needs to be visiting that web page and viewing one other web page’s content material. If one thing does go unsuitable, use the backup to revive your website.
Are There Any Options to URL Masking?
Completely! I stated at the beginning that URL masking was a type of redirection, thus, the only various a website can use is to arrange a URL redirection. Whereas the URL will change as soon as it’s accessed, the person is dropped at the proper location.
And in contrast to URL masking, when performed appropriately, URL redirection doesn’t negatively influence your search engine marketing.
If you happen to had been considering of utilizing URL masking to cover your affiliate hyperlinks or monitoring codes within the URL, a greater various is to make use of a URL shortening service. These providers mean you can enter a URL, after which create a shorter model of that URL that’s simpler to share, comparable to what I discussed earlier – Bitly.
WordPress is residence to plenty of nice plugins that may shorten your hyperlinks at no cost, however there are paid providers which you could strive as nicely. In some circumstances, these providers can create brand-specific URLs which can be simpler than URL masking completely.
If you happen to had been contemplating utilizing URL masking to guard your privateness, there are different options. Typically, your internet host will supply some type of safety. Right here at GreenGeeks, we provide ID Defend which you’ll add to your account for a small charge.
Basically, something you’d use URL masking for may be achieved another way, and for probably the most half, that’s what websites select to do. The dangers related to URL masking are too excessive to think about for many.
Is URL Masking Proper for You?
We’ve got talked extensively in regards to the execs and cons associated to URL masking. The reality is that there are some compelling causes to make use of it, however for the overwhelming majority of web sites, the cons outweigh the professionals.
As such, every website must make this determination for themselves. Nevertheless, when you select to implement URL masking, the above demonstration ought to assist you to set it up in a matter of minutes.
I hope you discovered this tutorial useful in organising URL masking in WordPress.
Why do you need to arrange URL masking in WordPress? Have been you conscious of the dangers of utilizing hyperlink masking?
