GoTryTHIS 2 Support Connection

How To… Use your own domain for Twitter links

John Reel — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 15:02:23 +0000

GoTryTHIS has short links for Twitter, created on twe.to, which has most of the features of the custom keyword redirects of GoTryTHIS.

Method 1:
If you want to use your own domain instead of twe.to, put this into your .htaccess of your short Twitter domain.

RewriteEngine ON
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://twe.to/$1 [R=301,L]

Method 2:
The other, potentially simpler way to do this, is to go into your domain control panel and change your short domain from a hosted domain to one that is domain forwarding or aliased to twe.to. Each control panel is different, so if you cannot figure out how, please ask your domain registrar or web host.

In either case, continue making your links short for Twitter in GoTryTHIS, creating links on twe.to. Those links will then also work on your short domain!

Note that your short domain will be dedicated to doing this one function and that ALL twe.to links for all GoTryTHIS customers will work through your domain, not that it is likely anyone else would use it.

How To… Track Craigslist ad views

John Reel — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 00:50:05 +0000

I was recently asked how to track views of craigslist ads.

1) Upload the image to display in the ad to somewhere web accessible.

2) Create a GoTryTHIS redirect link on one of your sites to the image.

3) Instead of adding an image under the ad, put the GoTryTHIS link to the image
into the ad text like this:

Look at my fancy computer for sale:

Here is a video of me doing all that.

How To… Track traffic to your home page

John Reel — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 08:51:26 +0000

Some article submission sites only allow you to enter your home page, with no paths or files after it. To track these impressions in GoTryTHIS, redirect them elsewhere, or otherwise track impressions on your home page within GoTryTHIS, here is what you do:

Use FTP and rename your home page to something else, like home.html or index2.html. Make a note of the old file name, which is probably index.html or index.php.
Create an index.php file with the following code, updated with your domain, but leaving “redirect.html” as is:

header( ‘Location: http://www.yoursite.com/redirect.html’ ) ;
?>

Create a redirect link in GoTryTHIS from redirect.html to the new home page filename, home.html, in our example.

If this does not work, it is probably because your web server is expecting the home page to be at index.html, not index.php. This can easily be fixed by editing the .htaccess file and adding the following line:

DirectoryIndex index.php

Google Webmaster Tools and 404 returns 200 code.

John Reel — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:48:12 +0000

When you try to verify your site with Google Webmaster Tools, so that they will index your sitemap, you get the error:

Verification status: NOT VERIFIED
We’ve detected that your 404 (file not found) error page returns a status of 200 (Success) in the header.

Solution:
When Google checks your 404 page, it expects to get a 404 response. If you have an actual page there, such as your home page, it will get a 200 (Success) response, and fail. So, you need a real 404 page, and it needs to send a 404 response. Here is how to set that up.

Create an actual 404, page not found document, as opposed to using your home page. This can be a simple HTML page, named something like 404.html, which tells the user that the page they requested cannot be found.

404 Page Examples: Examples from SmashingMagazine.com
At the top of the 404 page, add the following code:

header(”HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found”);
?>
Login to your GoTryTHIS dashboard, go to the “Management” page, “Domains” tab, select the domain, and in the settings change the error document to point to the page you created in step 1.

Moving web hosts

John Reel — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 14:40:58 +0000

General:
Have your web host set your TTL (Time To Live) to 0 on your old host, ASAP. The TTL tells other servers that visit your site (including GoTryTHIS links) that your server is going to be around for a while so they can cache (save and reuse) the DNS information to speed up response times. Setting it to 0 tells other server to check the DNS information every time because it is about to change when you move hosts. With it set to 0, when you move your web host, people will immediately find the new host instead of going to the old one. When you request the change, ask your host how long the TTL was set to, and then wait that length of time before changing your DNS.

If you do not set your TTL to 0, some people will go to the old server and some people will go to the new server, while the DNS change propagates around the Internet. This may result in lost click data on your GoTryTHIS links.

You can also ask your web host to set up DNS redirects to the new IP address for the new web host just before you switch the DNS.

Version 2, Hosted:
Moving the hosted version is easy, as there are no databases to contented with. Generally, you can just move your site and all will work.

When you move the files, make sure to move the .htaccess folder and the /gotrythis/ folder you installed the GoTryTHIS domain code into, along with your other files. Use Binary mode to move the gotrythis folder.
Change the DNS to point your site to the new server.
Once the DNS is moved and propagated (usually takes 24 hours), check the “/gotrythis/data/clicks” folder on the old server. If there are files there, FTP them to the same folder on the new server.

Version 2, Installed:
Moving the installed version is somewhat more challenging than the hosted version. For clarity, in the instructions below, there is the “Dashboard” and each domain is a “slave”.

If the dashboard is on the server being moved, backup the dashboard’s database, recreate it on the new server, and restore the data there.
Move over all the files from the dashboard (if that is a domain being moved) and slaves from the old server to the new server as you move the site. Remember to check your .htaccess is moved too. Use binary mode to move the gotrythis folders. The dashboard is installed in /gotrythis2/ by default. The slaves are installed in /gotrythis/ by default.
Update your DNS to point to the new server and wait until you see the new server instead of the old one. (Usually takes 24 hours.)
If the dashboard is on the server being moving, login to https://billing.gotrythis.com and click the “Install” button for the version 2 dashboard, point it to the new location, choose the “Configure” option, and follow the instructions SetupBOT gives you.
Login to the dashboard, go to the “Management” page, “Domains” tab, select the domain (slave) you moved, and click “Repair Domain”. Point SetupBOT to the slave you moved, choose the “Configure” option and follow the instructions in SetupBOT.
Check each slave’s “/gotrythis/data/clicks” folder on the old server. If there are files there, FTP them to the same folder on the new domain.
If you have other slave domains setup on the same dashboard, hosted on servers not being moved, they probably will be fine, but if not, repeat step 5 for each domain that is not working.

Version 1.x:

Backup the GoTryTHIS database on the old server. Create a database for GoTryTHIS on the new server and restore the backup there.
Move over all the files from the /gotrythis/ folder on the old server to the new server, as you move your site. Also move the .htaccess file.
Update /gotrythis/application/application.php (or .conf, depending on your version) on the new server, to point to the new database.
Update your DNS to point to the new server.
If the application or links are not working, login to http://my.gotrythis.com with the “Dashboard Installer” button, click the “Install” button for GoTryTHIS 1, point it to the new server, and choose the “Repair” option, then the “Configure” option to reconfigure GoTryTHIS.

Please let us know how this works for you in the comments.

PHP 5.3.x NOT SUPPORTED

John Reel — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 14:12:38 +0000

A new version of PHP has just been released, version 5.3.x. It is not yet supported, so please do not upgrade your PHP on your servers to that version yet. Few hosts typically upgrade to a new release right away, so this should not effect anyone yet unless you have a dedicated server and decide to upgrade yourself.

Connection has been broken on “Make Link Tiny” or restore password

John Reel — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 15:40:27 +0000

If you have the installed version, there was a brief period where a bug existed, which has been fixed. If you get a “connection has been broken” error when you click the “Make Link Tiny” button, or when trying to reset your password, please follow these instructions to fix it.

Login to http://my.gotrythis.com with the “Dashboard Installer” button.
Click the “Install” button for the GoTryTHIS 2 Dashboard.
Point SetupBOT to your installation, choose the “Repair” option, and follow the instructions.

How To… Know which Twitter tweets work best

John Reel — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:07:20 +0000

GoTryTHIS now creates twitter links, which support campaigns, so you can tweet the same link multiple times and see which tweet generates the most traffic.

For more details, see: http://uofgtt.com/Twitter

GoTryTHIS 2 and Twitter

John Reel — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:35:49 +0000

You can now mirror your GoTryTHIS links on short Twitter-friendly links with GoTryTHIS, on our two tiny domains, http://twe.to and http://klk.to.

Example: http://twe.to/spg8

With a campaign: http://twe.to/spg8-3

Usage:

This works on links after they are saved. Find the link you want to shrink, and click on its row to bring it up for editing.
In the “Basic” tab, click the “Make Link Tiny” button. It will generate the link and replace the button with the links.
Right-click on the link, copy the link URL, and paste it into your tweets in Twitter.
Append campaigns by adding a dash plus a made up campaign, as you write your tweets, as in “-1″

Demonstration:

Please watch this short video on short links:

How To… Split-test affiliate links

John Reel — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:41:25 +0000

Split-testing affiliate links shows you which one converts better or brings in more money. You simply add multiple affiliate links selling similar products to the “To URL”, each separated by a comma followed by a space.

Examples:

Correct: link1, link2

Incorrect: link1,link2

Visitors will always see the same destination when they repeatedly click on the link, but the affiliate links will be distributed evenly amongst those who click. Check your sales from each affiliate link to determine which one is more profitable.