40+ Reasons To Cloak Links

19 replies
  1. To shorten links so they look pretty/branded for your own brand
  2. 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)
  3. To shorten links so they don't get broken in emails due to the way some characters are handled
  4. To boost the number of citations of your domain (SEO benefit)
  5. To add in specific tracking code for clicks to determine popularity
  6. To add in specific tracking code for conversion tracking (think Prosper202)
  7. To gain social proof and boost viral impact (Tweetmeme buttons)
  8. To add in various javascript based tracking such as Google Analytics in situations where you can't use onclick.
  9. To track activity from referrers that don't pass on useful referral data such as Twitter clients
  10. To improve email delivery on your own behalf - you have built up a good sender score, so want to use it for your advantage
  11. To improve email deliver at the request of a vendor - often for product launches you are required not to use direct links.
  12. To split test landing pages
  13. To split test different products
  14. To be able to change the link at a later date
    1. Dead links
    2. Updated offer
    3. Fallen out with vendor
    4. Better convering offer
  15. As an affiliate tool for viral marketing (see Harvey's Ultimate Super Tips for inspiration)
  16. To achieve deep linking to anything even when it is not supported by the affiliate system.
  17. To have a URL bar for branding aka hootsuite/prettylinks
  18. To have a URL bar for additional viral sharing buttons
  19. To have a url bar offering a search box or related content suggestions from your own site
  20. To have a url bar offering top rated content from your own site (think Stumbleupon su.pr)
  21. To mask the URL of the page
  22. To mask the title of the page
  23. To stuff cookies - I am not advocating stuffing affiliate cookies without network or vendor explicit permission, and there are "whitehat" scenarios
  24. To boost view counts for sites like Alexa
  25. Redirect page can be blocked with robots.txt
  26. Redirect page can link to further redirects that are blocked, but have links back to your own site
  27. Pretty URLs
  28. To hide referrer details from affiliate network
  29. To hide referrer details from ultimate destination (as affiliate)
  30. To hide referrer when you link to something from a private member site
  31. For load balancing
  32. To prevent SEO juice for affiliate network
  33. To prevent SEO juice for vendor/3rd party (not a vote)
  34. To get a framed page to rank
  35. 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
  36. 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?
  37. 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.
  38. 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.
  39. To use some sneaky popunder advertising
  40. For geo-targeting
  41. For language targeting
  42. For behavioural targeting
  43. Because a "guru" told you to and you don't want to look like a newbie
  44. To hide affiliate links from Googlebot (Search)
  45. To hide affiliate links fromMediapartners-Google (Adwords)
  46. 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
  47. To block bots grabbing your content
  48. To Rickroll people
This isn't a comprehensive list, I just did a 30 minute brain dump

Can you think of any I have missed?
#affiliate redirects #cloak #cloaking #link cloaking #links #reasons
  • Profile picture of the author MikeAmbrosio
    Nice list. Never would have thought of 90% of those
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  • Profile picture of the author AndyBeard
    Permission aside... as I don't advocate breaking any ToS or doing something that in my mind is unethical.

    One of the problems with some cloaking solutions is the way browsers especialy IE handle privacy. Opera and Safari can do things different too.

    You can only do certain things across domains with IE for instance using iframes and still set a cookie. The work around is to have a p3p policy set up. If an affiliate network doesn't want you to iframe stuff, they don't have to use a P3P policy, and you lose 50% of your referrals if you don't comply.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ron Douglas
    Andy, great list man. A couple of questions:

    34. To prevent SEO juice for affiliate network
    35. To prevent SEO juice for vendor/3rd party (not a vote)
    If the links redirect, doesn't the final landing page pick up the SEO juice anyway?

    48. To Rickroll people
    For it to be an official Rickroll, do you have to play that same stupid music video? :-)
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  • Profile picture of the author MichaelHiles
    Add one... to quickly be able to substitute an alternate product without having to go back and recode all of your links across the web if something happens to the vendor / relationship / etc....
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    • Profile picture of the author Ron Douglas
      Originally Posted by MichaelHiles View Post

      Add one... to quickly be able to substitute an alternate product without having to go back and recode all of your links across the web if something happens to the vendor / relationship / etc....
      Good point. Wouldn't that be the same as #14?
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    • Profile picture of the author Janice Sperry
      Originally Posted by MichaelHiles View Post

      Add one... to quickly be able to substitute an alternate product without having to go back and recode all of your links across the web if something happens to the vendor / relationship / etc....
      Great point. This has saved me many times!
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  • Profile picture of the author AndyBeard
    Ron certainly most of it.. sometimes, depending on how it is coded

    e.g. one of th primary reaosns people still believe nofollow links are valuable is due to things like domain citations, and there are various white papers on it in particular reference to local search.
    Plus links get broken... where does the juice end up? What happens with links from a vendor who left the network?

    Michael

    I think I covered that in 14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4 though there are lots of reasons you need to change links.

    Actually some of the other reasons you might need to change them I included as seperate points as they were not really affiliate related, but for instance with Viral marketing.

    There was a good exmaple of a site pushing the envelope with anchor links from widgets a bit to far, I think it was in payday loans, and got hammered, as also happens to some people who have used WP themes in that way for dodgy sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author MichaelHiles
    derr... for some reason that one completely black holed for me.

    Yeah, #14 that.
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  • Link Hijacking is just one big reason. Since do did a lot of work to sell your products it would be a shame to let someone else take your commission.
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  • Profile picture of the author AndyBeard
    With Link Hijacking do you mean where an affiliate just plugs in their affiliate ID in a Clickbank link?

    Or maybe the bigger problems with spyware especially toolbars which override cookies or offer to override them after the final destination site is determined?

    I think with Clickbank there are all kinds of reasons - most often I am sure sales are lost not because of people using their own, though that happens, but because they realise there are going to be bonus offers from lots of other people.
    Most affiliate know what a Clickbank checkout page looks like, and most can track down a vendor if they want.

    The spyware and toolbar stuff mainly comes up on affiliate marketing forums such as discussions I have read on Abestweb
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  • Profile picture of the author theultimate1
    Andy, that's a great list. Lots of hidden content in it actually. Thanks

    However, is there a flip side to cloaking links? Are there any disadvantages of doing it?
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  • Profile picture of the author AndyBeard
    The flip side (another brain dump)

    1. Sometimes any form of url masking is banned by the affiliate program
    2. You may want people to be able to see that a link is going to a nice safe place on Amazon.com as people often don't care if there is an aff in there or not
    3. Sometimes some forms of redirects/cloaks dont work with some affiliate programs
    4. Some methods as I mentioned require explicit permission or are almost universally frowned on
    5. Some vendors or networks want to know where your traffic is coming from, even down to monitoring what keywords you bid on. (they can go to hell or pay for it)
    6. Security - various tracking scripts can get hacked just as easily as WordPress
    7. Centralization is only a good idea if it is secure, backed up etc
    8. In some situations where you have a coupon, you might want to use a clean link
    9. Some methods of hiding links with javascript don't work when the content is syndicated
    10. It places some small extra load on a server
    11. It is something else that needs to be migrated if you switch server
    12. If you switch tracking software, how easy is it to migrate links?
    13. As mentioned, you might not want people to know that a link being spread originates with you, so you might use bit.ly with no other tracking so it looks organic
    14. The more you get into it, the more complex it can become thus you need better systems and a better technical understanding. Lots of marketers don't even split test their email campaigns on a big launch, though they might not do it suggesting they are trying to be more transparent
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    • Profile picture of the author theultimate1
      Originally Posted by AndyBeard View Post

      The flip side (another brain dump)

      1. Sometimes any form of url masking is banned by the affiliate program
      2. You may want people to be able to see that a link is going to a nice safe place on Amazon.com as people often don't care if there is an aff in there or not
      3. Sometimes some forms of redirects/cloaks dont work with some affiliate programs
      4. Some methods as I mentioned require explicit permission or are almost universally frowned on
      5. Some vendors or networks want to know where your traffic is coming from, even down to monitoring what keywords you bid on. (they can go to hell or pay for it)
      6. Security - various tracking scripts can get hacked just as easily as WordPress
      7. Centralization is only a good idea if it is secure, backed up etc
      8. In some situations where you have a coupon, you might want to use a clean link
      9. Some methods of hiding links with javascript don't work when the content is syndicated
      10. It places some small extra load on a server
      11. It is something else that needs to be migrated if you switch server
      12. If you switch tracking software, how easy is it to migrate links?
      13. As mentioned, you might not want people to know that a link being spread originates with you, so you might use bit.ly with no other tracking so it looks organic
      14. The more you get into it, the more complex it can become thus you need better systems and a better technical understanding. Lots of marketers don't even split test their email campaigns on a big launch, though they might not do it suggesting they are trying to be more transparent
      Wow Andy, you're da man. Thanks a lot

      Your response was prompt and well sized Thanks again.
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  • Profile picture of the author Colin Theriot
    First, this reverse list just made this post 1000x more valuable.

    An aside to other aspiring "personality" marketers - this post is how you prove expertise. This post shows a deep and all encompassing knowledge of the topic. No cheesy headline, no silly hype. Just straight knowledge bombs dropping all up in here.

    Try harder to do THIS for the people in the audience you want to grow, and it'll never stop growing.
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    • Profile picture of the author grayambition
      Nice list, but why would you need any reason other than #43?
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  • Profile picture of the author AndyBeard
    49. To help you rank a frame for another geo-location

    50. To unify brand ownership of white label systems (Google Apps, Raven Tools etc) though this is more often cname than cloaking
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  • Profile picture of the author rich_henderson
    What an excellent list, I cloak all my affil links on my autoblogs and its really nice to know 30+ new reasons that I didn't know, to vindicate my decision
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  • Profile picture of the author AndyBeard
    pandre as I mentioned in point 37. sometimes you don't want a link traceable back to you, such as when seeding a viral campaign.
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