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Why do we need affiliate link cloaking?

by DoubleOhDave
19 replies
I'm still a bit confused about why we need to cloak affiliate links to prevent someone "stealing" them..

Can anyone cast any light on this?:confused:
#affiliate #cloaking #link
  • Profile picture of the author JOSourcing
    Banned
    A long time ago, marketers feared people could and would physically delete the tracking code that's appended to affiliate product URLs... just so that an affiliate wouldn't get credit for a sale when the link was clicked. Some people hold and/or promote the same fear today.

    Personally, I can't believe people have nothing better to do than strip tracking codes from links, which is why I suspect the fear was/is invented and marketed to sell cloaking software.

    A better use for such a thing would be to simply shorten a very long URL.
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    • Profile picture of the author DoubleOhDave
      Originally Posted by JOSourcing View Post

      A long time ago, marketers feared people could and would physically delete the tracking code that's appended to affiliate product URLs... just so that an affiliate wouldn't get credit for a sale when the link was clicked. Some people hold and/or promote the same fear today.

      Personally, I can't believe people have nothing better to do than strip tracking codes from links, which is why I suspect the fear was/is invented and marketed to sell cloaking software.

      A better use for such a thing would be to simply shorten a very long URL.
      Thank! I had kinda thought it was a bit bogus but nice to get that confirmed with some detail!
      Signature
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  • Profile picture of the author ToddRestrepo
    There is another advantage to cloaking your affiliate links other than just losing commissions to a few crafty people.

    If you have a bunch of affiliate links throughout your content it will devalue your post but if you use a simple php redirect which changes the link from hxxp//.superuglyaffiliatelink.com to hxxp//www.yourwebsitedomain.com/product.php this will help when your site gets crawled.

    It is easy to cloak a link so I don't know why you would not. Here is the code you can use, just paste it into a text doc but when you save it do so as .php

    <?php
    header('Location: [This is where you place the affiliate link]');
    ?>

    Hope this helps. Need any help LMK
    Todd
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    • Profile picture of the author DoubleOhDave
      Okay - I DO see the value in that!

      Thanks for that info!!!

      Dave


      Originally Posted by ToddRestrepo View Post

      There is another advantage to cloaking your affiliate links other than just losing commissions to a few crafty people.

      If you have a bunch of affiliate links throughout your content it will devalue your post but if you use a simple php redirect which changes the link from hxxp//.superuglyaffiliatelink.com to hxxp//www.yourwebsitedomain.com/product.php this will help when your site gets crawled.

      It is easy to cloak a link so I don't know why you would not. Here is the code you can use, just paste it into a text doc but when you save it do so as .php

      <?php
      header('Location: [This is where you place the affiliate link]');
      ?>

      Hope this helps. Need any help LMK
      Todd
      Signature
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  • Profile picture of the author magiclouie
    With respect to cloaking and masking affiliate links, you may try checking Link Cloaking and Tracking Software That Works - LinkTrackr.

    LinkTrackr can help you to:

    - Cloak and mask affiliate links easily with our web-based link cloaking software
    - Track hundreds of banner ads, PPC campaigns and other advertising clicks
    - Accurately track sales conversions and make smarter advertising choices
    - Track affiliates sales and performace with pixels and postback URLs
    - Split test your landing pages to dramatically improve your conversion rates
    - Get free, viral traffic and ready buyers from popular social media sites
    - Automate blog monetization with our simple yet powerful WordPress plugin
    - Have fun doing all of the above

    Cheers,
    Louie Tugas

    P.S. I just thought of sharing although it appears I am advertising it.
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    • Profile picture of the author DoubleOhDave
      LOL no worries I appreciate the reply!

      Originally Posted by magiclouie View Post

      With respect to cloaking and masking affiliate links, you may try checking Link Cloaking and Tracking Software That Works - LinkTrackr.

      LinkTrackr can help you to:

      - Cloak and mask affiliate links easily with our web-based link cloaking software
      - Track hundreds of banner ads, PPC campaigns and other advertising clicks
      - Accurately track sales conversions and make smarter advertising choices
      - Track affiliates sales and performace with pixels and postback URLs
      - Split test your landing pages to dramatically improve your conversion rates
      - Get free, viral traffic and ready buyers from popular social media sites
      - Automate blog monetization with our simple yet powerful WordPress plugin
      - Have fun doing all of the above

      Cheers,
      Louie Tugas

      P.S. I just thought of sharing although it appears I am advertising it.
      Signature
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  • Profile picture of the author atwellpub
    Originally Posted by DoubleOhDave View Post

    I'm still a bit confused about why we need to cloak affiliate links to prevent someone "stealing" them..

    Can anyone cast any light on this?:confused:
    Hello,

    Cloaking is showing the spiders a separate page from what a human visitor will see, and people have done that to prevent Google from sandboxing sites that are thin affiliate sites shooting for long tail keywords.

    Masking helps beautify links as well as provides ways to frame remote offers within the permalink structure of your site, as well as provides in-depth in-house click-tracking opportunities not afforded by other analytic programs.

    A good Masker/Cloaker can be a handy tool.
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  • Profile picture of the author kindsvater
    After reviewing over a hundred of my websites and doing different tests for the last year, I would say if Google finds a bunch of affiliate links your rankings will probably drop. I've seen pages go from the 1st page, out of the top 100, and then back to the 1st page with the only change being affiliate links.

    .
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    • Profile picture of the author lukedidit
      Originally Posted by kindsvater View Post

      After reviewing over a hundred of my websites and doing different tests for the last year, I would say if Google finds a bunch of affiliate links your rankings will probably drop. I've seen pages go from the 1st page, out of the top 100, and then back to the 1st page with the only change being affiliate links.

      .
      So swapping them back out will recover lost serps? I say that as I fell victim to believing pretty links lite actually did a 'Redirect 301', so its been a pretty useless plugin to me.
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      • Profile picture of the author atwellpub
        Originally Posted by lukedidit View Post

        So swapping them back out will recover lost serps? I say that as I fell victim to believing pretty links lite actually did a 'Redirect 301', so its been a pretty useless plugin to me.
        I've never heard this but it's quite possible.

        What does pretty link lite actually do? WP Traffic Tools lets the user select what the nature of the redirect is. Our standard redirect nature is a 307 redirect.
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        • Profile picture of the author Steve Lim
          Hi, I used to use bit.ly for shorten affiliate url, because the affiliate link from clickbank is long and looks weird. But the problems is lately bit.ly seems rejected affiliate link from clickbank, so I think might get a better looking professional cloaking linkby my own domain.
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  • Profile picture of the author Profit Mogul
    Banned
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author John Chadwick
      I re-developed a cloaking software for a membership I was the techie for. I now offer the software for free. There are paid upgrades but they are not needed as the basic version will do everything you need including redirects etc.

      The main reason I used it was for branding purposes. I hated the ugly links that were the usual affiliate hoplinks etc. I also wanted a solution that I could use with my domain name - mydomainname/recommends/theaffiliateproduct etc. This is good for branding and prettyfying (?) your links.

      The members who used it (some time served marketers amongst them) all gave good feedback and still use it as far as I am aware.

      There is a demo so you can have a play before you download it.....

      Affiliate Cloak Wizard

      Its also backed by a pretty comprehensive user area if you get stuck with anything.

      Hope that helps

      JohnChad
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      • Profile picture of the author lukedidit
        Originally Posted by John Chadwick View Post

        I re-developed a cloaking software for a membership I was the techie for. I now offer the software for free. There are paid upgrades but they are not needed as the basic version will do everything you need including redirects etc.

        The main reason I used it was for branding purposes. I hated the ugly links that were the usual affiliate hoplinks etc. I also wanted a solution that I could use with my domain name - mydomainname/recommends/theaffiliateproduct etc. This is good for branding and prettyfying (?) your links.

        The members who used it (some time served marketers amongst them) all gave good feedback and still use it as far as I am aware.

        There is a demo so you can have a play before you download it.....

        Affiliate Cloak Wizard

        Its also backed by a pretty comprehensive user area if you get stuck with anything.

        Hope that helps

        JohnChad

        Will take a look at this John - do you 301 within the Redirect code?
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  • Profile picture of the author Muhsin Aziz
    I dont really believe in cloaking links to prevent commissions from being stolen.

    I use redirects to make long ugly links look nicer.

    Which is why i use a simple tool called pretty link in wordpress.
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  • Profile picture of the author cijenterprises
    I use IBO toolbox to cloak.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alessandro Zamboni
      I used cloacking only for a short period years ago. From the day the service I was using closed, I had to replace hundreds of links.
      Since that day, I never used cloacking anymore.

      Also because Clickbank gives links cloacked automatically, and the other links are difficult to steal.

      So decide on your own, but my final advise is to avoid using useless cloacking and costly software or plugins.

      See you soon,
      Alessandro Zamboni
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      • Profile picture of the author onSubie
        Originally Posted by Alessandro Zamboni View Post

        I used cloacking only for a short period years ago. From the day the service I was using closed, I had to replace hundreds of links.
        Since that day, I never used cloacking anymore.
        Hi

        That is actually one of the benefits of cloaking links but one of the hazards of relying on a cloaking service.

        The advantage of using your own cloaking with a plugin like Pretty Links or your own php files is that you can update the destination URL and your cloaked links never go bad.

        Say you have a free ebook with embedded affiliate links to things like a recommended Host/Registrar or WSO/Clickbank products.

        The idea is people will download your 'free' ebook, but you will make affiliate commissions from readers who follow those links.

        If the link in the ebook looks like an affiliate link rather than part of the ebook: affiliate.hop.9087654.ugly.product compared to easyprofitcourse.com/traffic-tool it will have less credibility as part of the ebook information.

        In addition, if a product expires or the affiliate program changes, you need to change the links in the ebook for future downloads. But all the existing ebook copies already out there will have bad links.

        Using cloaking, you would simply change the cloaked link's destination to a new affiliate product or offer that does the same thing as the old one. You can also use it to update links if you change your recommended service or if their affiliate program changes.

        Then when someone clicks easyprofitcourse.com/keyword-tool in an old ebook copy, they go to hot.new.tool.34056.hop.link instead of tired.old.tool.12345.no.longer.supported.link.

        There are many ways to use cloaking to keep links 'evergreen' that you have no direct control over.

        Mahlon
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  • Profile picture of the author CyborgX
    Serving different content to search engine than to human visitors. Cloaking is basically a "bait and switch" tactic, where the web server feeds visiting spiders content that is keyword-rich, thus fooling the search engine into placing that page higher in the search results. Yet when the visitor clicks on the link they are given different content, which may be totally unrelated. Search engines frown upon this practice and some will penalize or ban sites that they catch doing it.
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    • Profile picture of the author atwellpub
      Originally Posted by Tear Stalker View Post

      Serving different content to search engine than to human visitors. Cloaking is basically a "bait and switch" tactic, where the web server feeds visiting spiders content that is keyword-rich, thus fooling the search engine into placing that page higher in the search results. Yet when the visitor clicks on the link they are given different content, which may be totally unrelated. Search engines frown upon this practice and some will penalize or ban sites that they catch doing it.
      Most of the time it's totally related. I've been honored to work with a handful of individuals who have employed the tactic and for the most part it's relatively harmful. The individuals are just sending traffic to a page that converts better then the one that is indexed (by catering to Google not the user).

      It also can be used to swing users to pages on the same domain that the person would rather have be the lander.

      All these complexities are reactions to complexities within Google's algorithm. At the end of the day it's cloaking represents contention between the will of google and the will of the webmaster.
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