40+ Reasons To Cloak Links
- To shorten links so they look pretty/branded for your own brand
- To make a link look like it is a clean link to someone else's brand (you need permission to register domains for other people's trademark quite often, and always best to ask)
- To shorten links so they don't get broken in emails due to the way some characters are handled
- To boost the number of citations of your domain (SEO benefit)
- To add in specific tracking code for clicks to determine popularity
- To add in specific tracking code for conversion tracking (think Prosper202)
- To gain social proof and boost viral impact (Tweetmeme buttons)
- To add in various javascript based tracking such as Google Analytics in situations where you can't use onclick.
- To track activity from referrers that don't pass on useful referral data such as Twitter clients
- To improve email delivery on your own behalf - you have built up a good sender score, so want to use it for your advantage
- To improve email deliver at the request of a vendor - often for product launches you are required not to use direct links.
- To split test landing pages
- To split test different products
- To be able to change the link at a later date
- Dead links
- Updated offer
- Fallen out with vendor
- Better convering offer
- As an affiliate tool for viral marketing (see Harvey's Ultimate Super Tips for inspiration)
- To achieve deep linking to anything even when it is not supported by the affiliate system.
- To have a URL bar for branding aka hootsuite/prettylinks
- To have a URL bar for additional viral sharing buttons
- To have a url bar offering a search box or related content suggestions from your own site
- To have a url bar offering top rated content from your own site (think Stumbleupon su.pr)
- To mask the URL of the page
- To mask the title of the page
- To stuff cookies - I am not advocating stuffing affiliate cookies without network or vendor explicit permission, and there are "whitehat" scenarios
- To boost view counts for sites like Alexa
- Redirect page can be blocked with robots.txt
- Redirect page can link to further redirects that are blocked, but have links back to your own site
- Pretty URLs
- To hide referrer details from affiliate network
- To hide referrer details from ultimate destination (as affiliate)
- To hide referrer when you link to something from a private member site
- For load balancing
- To prevent SEO juice for affiliate network
- To prevent SEO juice for vendor/3rd party (not a vote)
- To get a framed page to rank
- When split testing a landing page on a site without php, you might use various shortened links as you can't easily use dynamic subids for every visitor
- As a SEO safeguard especially for viral marketing when doing something pointing to a money site. e.g. you release lots of free themes with spammy footer links - Google decide to slap you, how do you repair the damage?
- To hide that a link was initially seeded by you - if you use a branded shortened link, it is obvious you had something to do with it.
- To include disclosure - say you direct link to an affiliate offer from Twitter - you could have an iframe with a disclosure statement, or a delayed meta refresh.
- To use some sneaky popunder advertising
- For geo-targeting
- For language targeting
- For behavioural targeting
- Because a "guru" told you to and you don't want to look like a newbie
- To hide affiliate links from Googlebot (Search)
- To hide affiliate links fromMediapartners-Google (Adwords)
- To hide affiliate links from spy tools used by other affiliates - some really smart things can be done to block people sniffing out your various sites
- To block bots grabbing your content
- To Rickroll people
Can you think of any I have missed?
Are you protecting your on line business? If you have a website, blog, ecommerce store you NEED to back it up regularly. Your webhost will only protect you so much. Check out Quirkel. Protect yourself.
Dial 888-888-9802, ext 66509 (3) , code 1 (#) FREE Recorded Message
My Sample Articles
My Sample Articles
Fair warning: It's possible I'm arguing with you because I have nothing better to do.
Join my free copywriting group on Facebook: http://CultOfCopy.com
Sr. Internet Marketer
Jan Weingarten
Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very"; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain