Do you "cloak" your affiliate links ?

Jekiko · 01-16-2009, 08:20 AM

I am new to this and am about to put
my affiate links on my website.

Before I do I wanted to know if most of you
"cloak" your links in order to reduce commisson
loss.

ıf so which method do you use ?

Asher · 01-16-2009, 08:29 AM

Hi Jekiko,

Yes, cloak your affiliate links. You won't
really see a lot of people leaving the affiliate
links on their websites if they know what
they're doing.

Asher

Jekiko · 01-16-2009, 08:31 AM

Thanks for the reply,
what method do you use ?
I have looked at using mod_rewite
and also "header("Location: aff_lnk")" method

Scott Million · 01-16-2009, 08:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Asher

Hi Jekiko,

Yes, cloak your affiliate links. You won't
really see a lot of people leaving the affiliate
links on their websites if they know what
they're doing.

Asher

I have loads of affiliate review sites and do not cloak links...and I'm making plenty

I might be losing some sales, but I don't see affiliate links as being a problem outside the IM niche.

knmrwarrior · 01-16-2009, 08:32 AM

Not just of click fraud but also to combat people who avoid clicking no affiliate links. The two simplest ways are using a PHP redirect or HTML redirect.

PHP Redirect - Create a file such as "the-aff-product.php" and use this code:

Code:

<?php header( 'Location: http://www.SOMESITE.com/affpage.html' ) ; ?>

HTML Redirect - Create a file such as "the-aff-product.html" and use this code:

Code:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>Affiliate Product Name</title>
<meta http-equiv="REFRESH" content="0;url=http://www.SOMESITE.com/affpage.html">
</HEAD>
<BODY>
Please wait, loading "the product name" page.</BODY>
</HTML>

Scott Million · 01-16-2009, 08:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by knmrwarrior

Not just of click fraud but also to combat people who avoid clicking no affiliate links. The two simplest ways are using a PHP redirect or HTML redirect.

PHP Redirect - Create a file such as "the-aff-product.php" and use this code:

Code:

<?php header( 'Location: http://www.SOMESITE.com/affpage.html' ) ; ?>

HTML Redirect - Create a file such as "the-aff-product.html" and use this code:

Code:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>Affiliate Product Name</title>
<meta http-equiv="REFRESH" content="0;url=http://www.SOMESITE.com/affpage.html">
</HEAD>
<BODY>
Please wait, loading "the product name" page.</BODY>
</HTML>

Yup, I use the .php redirect for the IM niche. Works great

Tekstar · 01-16-2009, 08:58 AM

Is this a concern with CJ or Linkshare links as well? Does that script cloak all of the aff links you have or just specific ones? Is there a script that will work with all links or any links?

Thanks,

-Bob

glofish · 01-16-2009, 09:05 AM

You'll need to check with your affiliate providers to make sure this is feasible. Some of my providers don't work well with redirects. I've had issues with extended redirect times with some.

Jekiko · 01-16-2009, 11:04 AM

There some products out there
both free and paid for that cloak the link
like LinkGuard

but I can't see the point of them when simple redirects
must work.

Does anyone use mod_rewrite to do the same thing ?

Another method I've see is to use a tinyurl
but that seems a bit, well unprofessional

What do you guys think - any other methods ?

madison_avenue · 01-16-2009, 11:19 AM

Domain forwarding is the most effective method. Register a domain and use that as the "middle man', for your affiliate links. Put all your affiliate links onto this domain. Then mask this page; whenever someone clicks on an affiliate link it goes to this domain, all affiliate links are masked on it, so only the " middle man", domain is displayed.

~kev~ · 01-16-2009, 11:29 AM

Personally, I think its unprofessional to cloak a link. When I mouse over and see the address the link goes to, I want to go to that address, not a redirect. If I am redirected, I will probably leave your site and never go back.

To answer the question: