What is URL Masking: When to Consider It for Your Website
URL masking is a technique used to display a website’s content under a different URL than the original website address. It’s often used to make the website’s URL more user-friendly or to hide the original URL for various reasons, such as to prevent users from bypassing certain security measures or redirecting traffic to another site.
URL masking involves creating a webpage or a subdomain on a server and then redirecting the user to the original website while keeping the masked URL in the address bar.
While URL masking can be useful in certain situations, it can also be abused for malicious purposes, such as phishing attacks or redirecting users to harmful websites. Therefore, it’s important to use URL masking carefully and only in legitimate cases.
If you don’t want to use URL masking, you can go with URL redirects.
What Are URL Redirects
URL redirection, also known as URL forwarding, is the technique of forwarding a user from one URL to another URL. It’s typically used to redirect traffic from an old or outdated URL to a new or updated one. For example, if a website changes its domain name, you can use URL redirection to ensure that users that try to access the old domain are automatically redirected to the new one.
You can also use URL redirection to redirect traffic to a different page on the same website, to track clicks on links or advertisements, to shorten long URLs, or to redirect traffic to an affiliate program or partner website.
Types of URL Redirection
There are two main types of URL redirection: server-side redirection and client-side redirection. Server-side redirection involves redirecting the user at the server level, while client-side redirection is performed using client-side scripting languages like JavaScript.
URL redirection is an important tool for website owners and marketers as it helps ensure that users are always directed to the correct page or website, improving website traffic and conversions.
Other Alternatives to URL Masking
If you are looking for alternatives to URL masking, consider these options:
1. URL Forwarding
Instead of masking the original URL, you can use URL forwarding to redirect the user to the desired page while displaying the original URL in the address bar. This method ensures that the user sees the original URL and can easily identify the website they are visiting.
2. URL Rewriting
This technique involves changing the structure of the URL to make it more user-friendly, without actually changing the content of the website. This can be done using server-side scripting languages, such as PHP or ASP.NET.
3. Canonical URLs
Canonical URLs are used to avoid duplicate content issues by specifying the preferred URL for a webpage. This helps improve search engine rankings and ensures that users always land on the correct page.
4. Subdomain
If you want to create a separate section of your website with a different URL, consider using a subdomain. For example, if your main website is www.example.com, you can create a subdomain called blog.example.com for your blog.
5. Content Delivery Network (CDN)
CDNs can be used to serve website content from multiple servers located in different parts of the world, improving website speed and reliability. Some CDNs also offer custom domain support, allowing you to use your own domain name instead of the CDN’s URL.
Overall, the choice of an alternative depends on your specific use case and the goals you are trying to achieve.
When to Mask a URL: 3 Scenarios to Consider
URL masking can be used in certain situations where there is a legitimate need to hide the original URL. Here are some scenarios where URL masking can be useful:
1. Affiliate Marketing
If you are an affiliate marketer promoting products from another website, you can use URL masking to hide the original affiliate link and make it more user-friendly. This can increase click-through rates and improve your chances of earning a commission.
2. Branding
If you want to create a custom URL for your website that reflects your brand or business name, you can use URL masking to display the custom URL instead of the original URL.
3. Security
In some cases, you may want to hide the original URL to prevent users from bypassing certain security measures or to protect sensitive information.
Advantages and Disadvantages of URL Masking
Advantages
- Creates user-friendly and easy-to-remember URLs
- Promotes branding by displaying a custom URL that reflects the brand or business name
- Increases click-through rates in affiliate marketing by hiding the original affiliate link
- Helps protect sensitive information and prevents users from bypassing certain security measures
- Provides a more seamless user experience by hiding complex or unattractive URLs
- Enables website owners to change the appearance of the URL without changing the actual website
- Helps to track website traffic and visitor behaviour more accurately by using custom URLs
- Provides more control over how the website is presented to users and enables customisation based on user preferences
Disadvantages
- Can mislead users by displaying a different URL than the actual one, which can be harmful if it leads to phishing attacks or redirects users to malicious websites
- Can hide the actual destination of a link, leading to a lack of transparency and mistrust among users
- Can lead to duplicate content issues if the same content is displayed on multiple URLs, which can dilute the search engine ranking
- Can be used to hide low-quality content or spammy links, which can lead to penalties from search engines and a decrease in website rankings
- Can lead to indexing issues if search engines are unable to properly index the original URL
- Can confuse users who want to bookmark or share the page, as they may not be able to access the page directly by entering the custom URL
Does URL Masking Impact SEO
URL masking can have a negative impact on search engine optimization (SEO) because search engines may not be able to recognise the original URL and give it the appropriate ranking. This is because URL masking involves displaying a different URL than the actual one, which can confuse search engines and lead to indexing issues.
URL masking can also lead to duplicate content issues if the same content is displayed on multiple URLs, making it difficult for search engines to determine which URL to display in search results.
Aside from this, URL masking can be used to hide low-quality content or spammy links, which can lead to penalties from search engines and a decrease in website rankings.
READ: SEO 101: A Beginners’ Guide to Understanding SEO
Mask URLs Appropriately
Overall, URL masking should be used with caution and only for legitimate reasons. It’s important to consider the potential negative impact on SEO and site security before implementing URL masking. Plus, it’s best to ensure that the original URL is still accessible and properly indexed by search engines.
