Affected by the New WordPress Cloaking Policy?

You've raised some important points here THANKS

Indeed many WP plug-ins have not been adapted to the frequent WP upgrades and become unusable

From my experience links must be monitored manually because the web is still too unstable to be able to rely on automated link checking.

An affiliate redirect using either some simple PHP or HTML is pretty easy to self host on your own server.

Not sure how this could be click tracked though using these methods. Any ideas?

The big G has always played the role of the Big Brother with a whip looking for whom to thrash huh?

Lets not pass the buck to G.

Can't you just download the plugin from their website?

Pretty Link WordPress Plugin | Blair Williams

@mojojuju - far worse, socialists.

As long as they keep updating, you'll be fine. They can't reach into your code and pull it out.

I don't really see how they could alter the core do disrupt it either, and I'm not sure they have a legal right to do so anyway.

WordPress › Pretty Link (Lite Version) WordPress Plugins

???

Edit:

http://blairwilliams.com/where-did-p...k-cloaking-go/

It's not always about trying to hide the link. Cloaking is an unfortunate term, IMO. It's about the ability to change a link easily, like when the vendor changes their affiliate system and all your links quit working.

Since when do VISITORS get RIGHTS on MY website?

If I want to use a cloaked link for tracking, to hide an affiliate link, to make it look nicer, or because I just feel like it, that is strictly my business. No one is forcing any visitor to click on a link.

Then why use anchor text in your sig file?

Maybe you can petition the government, and they can amend the constitution to end this horrible injustice.

Hi Kev,
I am with you about the cloaking of links when they are of nefarious nature.

But sometimes a cloaked link is simply just a way to redirect and track referrals. As a perfect example, on your survivalist forum your banner links are not directly taking the person to the site. Rather, it takes them through a complex url (which admittedly does have the url hidden in there along with 2 additional urls).

These kinds of redirects are perfectly understood by the person clicking them that they will be taken to another site. Just like when I use Pretty Link to take people to a download link for a free product on my site, to my twitter page or even to a post here on the warrior forum.

Personally, I am disappointed that WP did this. I understand why and it is a shame that because people abuse the system, others have to take the "punishment" as well.

-Scott

P.S.
Kev, I checked out your forum and I am glad I did! I have a big tie to disaster preparedness and saw you have a sub forum specifically on that. I am going to check it out.

I guess many people share your view Kev. There are sites where you type the cloaked link in and they will bring back the full link so if it is a must, the cloaked links can be checked before you click!

One such site is LongURL | The Universal Way to Expand Shortened URLs

I know it works for bitly and prettylink!

And I'll have to disagree with you. The whole concept of cloaking links is to:

1. Make it more readable.
2. Protect your affiliate link.
3. Better tracking.

If you don't like the link, don't click on it.

I'm leaving the following just for posterity's sake - and a reminder to myself not to fly off half-cocked - I COMPLETELY misread your post Ken, and what you were talking about. Apologies.


Oh, good grief.

They have the right because they own the site. If they don't want certain things there, they don't have to let them be there.

There are plenty of popular plugins that aren't on the repository. It just makes them harder to find and more of a pain in the ass to upgrade.

Haha - now I want to make one that jumps up and down, flips and says "buy my Sh!t" ala Frank Kern style. - haha.

From my play in it there are a couple way to classify link alterations:

1. Link Redirecting
2. Link Masking
3. Link Cloaking

1. Link Redirecting

The foundation. Uses redirection; probably most url shortners fall into this category too.

Code:

http://www.myblog.com/redirect.php?id=12364

2.Link Masking

Link masking is akin to... permalink structuring. It allows a a new pretty link to replace the longer, further information revealing unsightly link.

Available Softwares:

Pretty Links and many others (download mentioned above)

3. Link Cloaking

This encompasses both 1 and 2 except it prevents Non-Human visitors or targeting visitors from following the link, and usually redirects undesirables back to the original page or somewhere else.

This is is similar to a rel=nofollow, but it is more protecting information rather than link flow (actually protecting both); considering how information might affect algorithms.

Available Softwares:

Cloak Me - WSO Available - Cloak Me - Wordpress Link Cloaker & Spider Redirection | Wordpress Link Cloaker

WP Link Engine - WSO Coudn't Find - WP Link Engine | Wordpress Link Cloaker <--- Notice the Masked URL!

@Istvan,

You are right on the money! The issue here was with Wordpress.COM blogs?!?!

Well, actually we're partly to blame for this, lol.

When we submitted our link cloaking plugin for LinkTrackr (Link Cloaking, Masking and Tracking Software - LinkTrackr is 100% Web Based) they rejected our plugin with a one liner reply: "We don't accept cloaking plugins"

So I correctly pointed out to them in my reply email that there are over 14 cloaking plugins on WordPress.org so why do claim that they don't accept it. No reply to my email.

So i pushed further via Twitter with a friend's help trying to get a better reply.

Finally I did get an indirect channel to Matt and they informed me that they will take a look at it. Next thing I know, they removed all the existing cloaking plugins.

My intention was to get my plugin included, not to get other plugins removed, just to be clear. But that's what they decided.

For the record, our plugin is rejected again, for the third time, even after we removed any "cloaking" term and function.

I think the problem is, the guys over at WordPress don't really understand what "link cloaking" means. In fact I think they understand very little about affiliate marketing in general.

The other problem is that they don't clearly specify what type of plugins they don't accept. So we spend all that time developing it, only to have someone (Mark Jacquith i guess) arbitrarily reject it without any useful comments.

We've developed and submitted other plugins too, which were either rejected with a vague "Your plugin will not be included" reply, or approved but later silently deleted from WordPress.org.

I've made my case to Matt (via a friend) on how they should improve the plugin submission process, but apart from deleting all the cloaking plugins, I don't see any changes to the way things are done.

Yes that's true. In fact what our plugin does is "link masking" or "link redirect".

But somehow, the term "link cloaking" now has replaced the other two words in a way that it means the same thing. In terms of SEO also, that term is searched much more.

But just changing "link cloaking" to "link masking" doesn't seem to get your plugin accepted either.

Blair Williams is much better connected in the WordPress community (even has some presentations you can find on WordPress.tv) and I think that's the only reason his plugin got back in and everyone else didn't.

good video - you might also want to adjust your .htaccess file to disallow on the folder to avoid the robots.