Should I Use This Method To Cloak My Links?

[TTran]

< a href="http://fakeurl.com/fakename" onclick="document.location.href = 'realaffiliatelink.com/sdfsdf'; return false;">Anchor Text</a >

I currently have a few product review sites using blogger. I'm currently using tinyurl to cloak my links and the clickthrough rate seems to be very low.

I'm thinking people might not want to click a tinyurl link?

Anyways, I've found this html code that tricks the viewer when they hover over your anchor text. It'll say whatever you want on their browswer when they hover over it, but in reality they'd click your affiliate link.

Do you think this would help my clickthrough rate? Do you think it would affect my google rank?

Thanks in advance.

btw, if you'd like to check out my link placement and whatnot PM me.

[scrofford]

I cloak my links by creating "php" files. From what I understand, Google doesn't like "tinyurl". Anyway, I think it is better to use php. I learned how to do it here although I do not remember the persons name on here that gave me the information, but I give him all the credit for about what I am going to give you...so this is how you do it....

Below is the format to cloak affiliate link:

<?php
header ("Location: http://www.gardening-book.com/index.php?aff_id=12345");
?>

Say you have a page on your website called presell.html that contains your affiliate link to a product about gardening, something like this:


Code:
You're an idiot if you don't buy <a href="http://www.gardening-book.com/index.php?aff_id=12345">this stupid gardening book</a> right now.In this case, the affiliate link you want to cloak is this:


Code:
http://www.gardening-book.com/index.php?aff_id=12345It can be anything. The format of the affiliate link doesn't matter a bit.

Create a new text file using Notepad or another plain text editor. Call it gardening.php or some name appropriate to your situation. (If you use Notepad make sure to save it with a .php extension or change it later. Notepad may try to save it with a .txt extension.)

Put the following text in the gardening.php file:


PHP Code:
<?php
header ("Location: http://www.gardening-book.com/index.php?aff_id=12345");
?>
Use whatever affiliate link you had in your original html file where I've put the same example link from above.

Upload the gardening.php to your web server in the same directory where you have your original presell.html file.

Edit your original presell.html file. Where you originally had something like this:


Code:
You're an idiot if you don't buy <a href="http://www.gardening-book.com/index.php?aff_id=12345">this stupid gardening book</a> right now.Change it to this:


Code:
You're an idiot if you don't buy <a href="gardening.php">this stupid gardening book</a> right now.In other words change the link target so it goes to your newly uploaded PHP file. That's it. No fuss, no muss. Create one small file, upload it, and make a small edit in your original file.

Whoever gave this to me...Thanks again and I know you posted it somewhere...I really appreciated it because it works and I use it all the time.

[scrofford]

I actually found the post! I posted in the programming forum...it was called "Much trouble with link cloaking". Steve Diamond helped me out and gave me the formula I gave you. You can probably find out more if you go there.

[Jennienbr]

OH wow Steve .... even a newbie who know basic html only clearly understood those instructions ... great job explaining it!! Do it yourself link cloaker! Thanks!