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hiding affiliate link?

by satrap
6 replies
This question might seem very novice, but i always remember this old saying "your not stupid if you ask what you don't know, but you are stupid if you don't ask what you don't know" ( its a translation of a saying in my language which is farsi or persian, i think there is one in english as well which this is not the exact words but close enough). any way the question is when you use an affiliate link, do you hide it somehow?( i am not sure if encrypting is the describing word!??) because many people tend to not like it and even though they wont lose any value by using the same link, they delete it or just open another browser and just use the page url.
if you do hide it, how do you do it?
also, dose making the url shorter with use of tinyurl some how hurts the affiliate link, or is it against the rules?
thanks in advance
satrap
#affiliate #hiding #link
  • Profile picture of the author Ray Erdmann
    There are a few ways to get around an obvious 'affiliate link', but depending on what market you're targeting, going the extra effort to 'hide it', may not be needed.

    If you're targeting other internet/affiliate marketers, then it may be wise to 'encrypt' the URL, using various techniques. There are a few paid/free 'tools' that allow you do this, but I'm sure a few will chime in here and reference 'bit.ly', "offto.net" or some other URL shortening service.

    If, on the other hand, you're targeting the 'underwater basket-weaving' crowd (LOL!), then you probably don't really need to cloak/hide/encrypt your affiliate link, as the perspective customer won't know that it is just that...an affiliate link!

    Check out the alternatives and see which one suits/fits your technical know-how and try it out. Nothing ever wrong with 'testing'..if you get my drift! ;-)


    Ray
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  • Profile picture of the author Norma Holt
    I do a lot of affiliate marketing but have my own web sites. I send people to the various companies via secure links supplied by the companies themselves and the shops that I install which are data feeds. As you get into it you will probably find easy ways to overcome this. When I started out I thought that cloaking was necessary but quickly found it wasn't, in my case anyway.
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  • Profile picture of the author shaddai
    I kind of agree with Ray...whether to attempt to hide the affiliate link or not depends on the technical skill of the audience :-)

    One thing to note though, there are some instances where a bit.ly link is attractive...just because it looks weird to your average joe, says nothing about where it's going....and curiosity killed the cat.

    Todd
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  • Profile picture of the author tommen
    Using tinyurl or similar will tell the visitor that you are hiding something.Use a simple .htaccess redirect instead.
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  • Profile picture of the author DogScout
    You'd be surprised at the knowledge some non-IM people have about links. I would have guessed the exact opposite, hide non-IM ones.
    The real link shows up eventually on the landing page in some cases (if they notice) unless the vendor has a good script kiddie.

    I guess it depends on the niche, with disclaimers being required, how much of an issue is it? (other than prettying the link up).
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  • Profile picture of the author um1001
    If you're using Wordpress, you could try using the Pretty Link plugin. It will make something like

    google.com become something like yourblogname.com/google and it gives you stats

    I personally have custom scripts but then I'm also fairly skilled at PHP
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