Am I sacrificing commissions by cloaking my affiliate links?

[Chris Sweeney]

I have a WordPress site and I'm using a free plugin called Pretty Link to cloak my affiliate links. Here's what I'm confused about though. On the stat page for the affiliate program, it says I have gotten 55 visitors through that link over the past few days. However, the Pretty Link plugin in WordPress is saying I've gotten 165 over the same time frame. I know for sure that the link is working because I've already made a couple sales, but I'm afraid the link isn't working for every visitor and that I'm losing sales. Anybody else experience this? Like do cloaked affiliate links not register for certain visitors, i.e. for some web browsers or something?

[paulgl]

Stats are not 100% reliable either way. They may be measuring
different things, different ways.

I can never even come up with one real reason to cloak an affiliate link.

It's not very user-friendly anyway.

Plus, it depends on how the cloaking is done. I would do it myself
without any plug in. That way, I would know there's no changing the
url in any way, shape, or form. It may be that your affiliate link needs
to set a cookie or something, and some people turn these off. In
that case, it would not matter either way about any cloaking.

After all is said and done, why cloak? There is more than one way
to skin a cat.

Paul

[dadamson]

Paul is correct, I wouldn't rely on the stats at all.

There may be some browser or cookie preferences that are altering the stats data but when it comes down to it, I think every person who clicks on your links will carry your affiliate ID with them.

[Chris Sweeney]

Ah cool, thanks for your input guys, I really appreciate it!

Originally Posted by paulgl

Stats are not 100% reliable either way. They may be measuring
different things, different ways.

I can never even come up with one real reason to cloak an affiliate link.

It's not very user-friendly anyway.

Plus, it depends on how the cloaking is done. I would do it myself
without any plug in. That way, I would know there's no changing the
url in any way, shape, or form. It may be that your affiliate link needs
to set a cookie or something, and some people turn these off. In
that case, it would not matter either way about any cloaking.

After all is said and done, why cloak? There is more than one way
to skin a cat.

Paul

Originally Posted by dadamson

Paul is correct, I wouldn't rely on the stats at all.

There may be some browser or cookie preferences that are altering the stats data but when it comes down to it, I think every person who clicks on your links will carry your affiliate ID with them.

[jguy1]

I was using Maxblogpress to cloak my affiliate links on this one site. The affiliate program makes it easy for me to determine if there is an issue with my link because it literally shows my affiliate ID number - directly above the phone number on the contact page - if someone were to make a phone call to order the product.

Here is what I learned:

when I cloaked my affiliate link using maxblogpress it passed along the affiliate cookie to the page they land on (homepage of the product)...but...once the user clicks on the "order button" the affiliate link is NOT registered. I WAS missing out on commissions. I changed it - and what do you know...I start making more sales.

NOWWW this has me thinking...is this happening with other affiliate programs I using? I'm going to see - because on some of my sites - I could be missing out on thousands of dollars if this is the case.

[Boris_yo]

I don't quite understood. Affiliate cookie is passed to home page, but when user clicked on order button, the cookie disappeared? The problen is not in cloaker. The problem is not on your side.

[Matt Ward]

The Pretty Links plugin also tracks spider visits. I'm assuming.

[Natlex]

Originally Posted by mattward

The Pretty Links plugin also tracks spider visits. I'm assuming.

Ya, I came to that conclusion a while ago. Most likely the reason you see differences.

[Offershock]

I use the same plugin I wonder if my stats are correct

[Tuxxy]

I always cloak my affiliate links, they look untidy to be honest. :/

[jguy1]

Maxblogpress does what it is suppose to do - cloaked my link. It's a great piece of software. The issue is (in my opinion) the affiliate program handling cloaked links. So yes, it's very likely the affiliate program.

People would be cookied when they click on one of my links - and when they land on the main homepage of the affiliate program - they are still cookied. Once they click on ANYTHING off of the homepage of the affiliate program...order button, testimonial page --- the cookie won't be there anymore. It's very likely the affiliate program -- so it makes me cautious when I cloak links from now on. Hope this helps.

[Boris_yo]

Originally Posted by jguy1

Maxblogpress does what it is suppose to do - cloaked my link. It's a great piece of software. The issue is (in my opinion) the affiliate program handling cloaked links. So yes, it's very likely the affiliate program.

People would be cookied when they click on one of my links - and when they land on the main homepage of the affiliate program - they are still cookied. Once they click on ANYTHING off of the homepage of the affiliate program...order button, testimonial page --- the cookie won't be there anymore. It's very likely the affiliate program -- so it makes me cautious when I cloak links from now on. Hope this helps.

Once cookie is planted it must stay in visitor's computer as long as it can depending on affiliate program until expired/deleted, no matter where he/she goes.

More likely it is how your browser handles cookies and antivirus/antispyware cookie rules. Try testing on someone's computer or on a computer with a browser accepting all cookies and antivirus/antispyware protection turned off.

If same negative result appears everywhere, then the problem is in affiliate program, not cloaking script. Refer to support/affiliate manager.

[MarketingTorch]

I thought I was losing sales because of cloaking my links, so I uncloaked them and sales went down. My research shows that ad blocker add-ons for Firefox are blocking uncloaked links, so if you're not cloaking, you're probably losing sales. Your mileage may vary. But for me it's back to cloaking. However, the cloaking plugin I was using before has vanished from the plugin library at Wordpress so I have to pick something new.

Now the question I have is...Pretty Links (Lite Version) or Pretty Links (Pro Version). Has anyone bought the pro version? Is it worth the purchase? Thanks.

[GeorgR.]

What you call "cloaking" is as far as i know "simply" a 301 redirect. I remember pretty links does a normal 301 redirect. (which can be done in many different ways)

I personally would not purchase such a program since a 301 redirect is pretty simple (i use PHP for this)...but it might help if you have MANY links.

As far as i can tell there is no tracking issues or anything with clickbank. ALL of my afflinks are like mysite.com/product.php (the PHP then does a 301 redirect)

[MarketingTorch]

Update: I just discovered that Pretty Link (Lite Version) no longer offers cloaking, to comply with an absurd new policy of Wordpress that refuses library entry to plugins that offer link cloaking. No wonder I couldn't find the old plugins.

So now the new question is: what's left? GoCodes is too old (only tested up to WP 2.8 and I'm on WP 3.1 MS), so I guess that leaves Pretty Link Pro. Or is there a suitable alternative that's not in the WP plugin library?

[Adam H]

I used to use php redirects but for some reason every now and then it wouldnt redirect so i thought maybe it was also doing that for potential customers , Now i use .htaccess redirects something along the lines of :

Redirect 301 /goto/nicecleanlink.php http://www.website.com/affiliatelink=?riverwire

[MarketingTorch]

Originally Posted by Riverwire

I used to use php redirects but for some reason every now and then it wouldnt redirect so i thought maybe it was also doing that for potential customers , Now i use .htaccess redirects something along the lines of :

Redirect 301 /goto/nicecleanlink.php http://www.website.com/affiliatelink=?riverwire

That's too much work for the number of links I need to change (cloak). Not only links moving forward, but old links that were dynamically cloaked, but are now exposed, which require cloaking again. That was the beauty of the old plugins. I just need something to replace that. Pretty Link Pro, Eclipse, or something.

Is anyone using a link cloaker with WP 3.1 MS that they're happy with that's either free or reasonable? (Less than $100 for unlimited use.) Thanks.