14 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
14 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Link Cloaking

by redstanford
12 replies
can someone explain to me what exactly link cloaking is?

i have a product review site directing buyers to Amazon. if i were to cloak my links, would my links go from looking like amazon.com/qewdqefe/ewd/wdewdewd/dwdwdwd to amazon.com/product name?

do they have better CTR than standard affiliate links?

is link cloaking a bad thing for seo, more specifically google?
#cloaking #link
  • Profile picture of the author Studio13
    You can cloak your links in multiple ways.

    One method is to create a webpage on your own site, call it: amazonproduct.html

    In the HTML put this:

    <HEAD>
    <meta http-equiv="REFRESH" content="0;url=http://www.your-affiliate-link-code.com">
    </HEAD>

    Upload your page. Now everywhere you want to put your cloaked link, direct it to that page. So when a person mouses over your links it'll say, "http://yourdomain.com/amazonproduct.html"

    When they click on the link it will instantly redirect them through your affiliate link.

    This method has the additional benefit of tracking your outbound clicks. It's even more beneficial if you actualy send them through a tracking software, and not just a simple redirect — however, awstats and awebalizer should give you some basic stats on click-throughs on that type of cloaked link. You can see this in action by clicking my article builder affiliate link. Mouse over it — and it'll show pyralinks (my site). Click it, and you'll instantly goto the article builder site.

    Hope this helps.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5616391].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Ross Cohen
    Link cloaking makes it make whatever URL in to whatever other URL. For example, amazon.com/4tuqjrkgeanejn in to yoursite.com/visitsite/sitename... or yoursite.com/sitename... or whatever else. You can make it yoursite.com or not. Bunch of Wordpress plugins exist to do this if you're using Wordpress... and yes, CTR increases, no it's not bad for SEO.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5616403].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author tim_buchalka
    Honestly for most niches link cloaking is probably a waste of time.

    There are anumber of reasons for link cloaking.

    1) To stop people stealing your commissions - theory being if they cannot see its an obvious affiliate link they cannot figure out how to become an affiliate - In practice often the landing page makes it obvious - e.g. clickbank pages clearly show clickbank when you go to buy.

    2) To prevent search engines from seeing obvious links - Not really going to help much since a search engine can "follow" a link anyway.

    In the IM niche lots of people just don't like the fact that people are profiting with an affiliate link and so an obvious affiliate link can look like a negative.

    But in all other niches your buyers are not IM'ers and I doubt they spend much time even checking out a link.

    They just click it.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5616424].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author sunray
      Originally Posted by tim_buchalka View Post

      Honestly for most niches link cloaking is probably a waste of time.


      2) To prevent search engines from seeing obvious links - Not really going to help much since a search engine can "follow" a link anyway.

      .
      It must be combined with rel="nofollow". Google does then not follow the link and has no idea what's behind it.
      Signature
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5616997].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author Studio13
        Originally Posted by sunray View Post

        It must be combined with rel="nofollow". Google does then not follow the link and has no idea what's behind it.
        Google still indexes nofollow links... it doesnt pass on Pagerank however.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5617032].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author tim_buchalka
          Originally Posted by Studio13 View Post

          Google still indexes nofollow links... it doesnt pass on Pagerank however.
          No longer strictly true anymore. Some pagerank is now passed with nofollow links. Or rather some page rank evaporates if you use "nofollow". Which is probably NOT what you want. I am talking from Googles perspective here.

          See here

          nofollow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

          If you want to pass on zero pagerank (and give all your pagerank) to the links you do want to rank well, then you need to use javascript/iframes/of flash to do it.

          Cheers


          Tim
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5617961].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author sunray
      Originally Posted by tim_buchalka View Post

      2) To prevent search engines from seeing obvious links - Not really going to help much since a search engine can "follow" a link anyway.
      Do you really know that Google does sometimes follow links that are marked as nofollow? I thought that they do not dare to do it. As for me, this far I've not discovered a Google or Yahoo Bot IP addresses (66.249.*.* for Google; 74.6.*.* for Yahoo) in my redirect tracking logs.
      Signature
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5708557].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Arroway
    In general, you can also simply use a URL shortener like tinyurl.com to cloak your link. But if you have your own site, the way Studio 13 describes is certainly the best option.

    Allen
    Signature
    Allen Arroway - marketer, philanthropist and passionate teacher.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5616970].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Randall Magwood
    Better to cloak your ads using your own website address as opposed to something like Tinyurl. And since you're considering using Amazon to promote products, my assumpmtion is that you will be marketing to all kinds of people... including those in the IM niche. Some will buy, especially if you use your own domain name. And some in the IM niche won't even care. I think you should cloak with your website.
    Signature
    ==>> Free book reveals make money with affiliate marketing
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5617895].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author colzinfobiz
    Found a good tip for link cloaking. use tiny url dot com and insert an extension with the add or niche you are targeting. ex. tinyurl(dot)com/dogtraining. Bit more attractive to the prospect.

    Cheers
    Signature
    You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink....What if you can't find the water? ;-)
    Follow my latest blog updates:
    http://colsbestbizopps.com
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5625871].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author TerryF
    I am using a plug in for a WP site which cloaks the redirect but when the person arrives on the Click Bank page the hoplink id is clearly visible and could easily be changed. Is there any software that could cloak the affiliate id on the product page of a link that is available for WP?
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5708380].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Nolimit2it
    I hope it is ok to jump in with this...

    I'm trying to sort out something in my head about this also.
    What I REALLY need is a link tracker/cloaker/url shortener that gives me the option to create my own cloaked affiliate urls based on my domain name but created so they look like this -
    mydomain_com/uses/this_html but which also tracks the click and keeps a log of where that click came from.

    I have BestDamnRedirect and it does do that (although I'm finding it complicated to understand how to do it with it) but the tracking seems to be lacking (I get a number of clicks but would really like to know WHO clicked that link).

    Am I missing something in BDR or are there simpler systems/programs out there I could use?
    Thanks for any thoughts on this
    Signature
    Daryl Austman
    Greymouse Web Design & Local Marketing Services - GreymouseServices.com
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[5833988].message }}

Trending Topics