Quick Link Cloaking Question

5 replies
Folks, I've used PHP redirects to cloak my links for years, but I just received an email from a friend that's starting to get serious about IM. He was wondering is there any problem using a URL shortener to cloak his links? Already told him that redirects would be much better, but since he asked, I've also become curious... Anyone?
#cloaking #link #question #quick
  • Profile picture of the author Mark Brian
    Depends on your purpose.
    Cloaking is not good for SEO.
    You should only use it to hide your affiliate link.
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    • Profile picture of the author peter gibson
      Originally Posted by Mark Brian View Post

      Depends on your purpose.
      Cloaking is not good for SEO.
      You should only use it to hide your affiliate link.
      Thanks heaps Mark. From what I gather he just needs to cloak his clickbank affiliate link, so he's likely not concerned with SEO.
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    • Profile picture of the author Frank Donovan
      Peter,

      One potential problem is that the company supplying your URLs may have server problems, in which case your links would be down without your knowledge - or, worse, could cease business and force you to change all the affiliate links you might have across the web.

      Not a fun job.


      Frank
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  • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
    Use your own url shortener... there are free scripts out there to use them on your own domain

    As Frank said, the third party stuff is questionable because you are putting your business in someone else's hand.
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  • Profile picture of the author peter gibson
    Yep, I already advised him to just redirect via his own domain, but my understanding is that he just needs a quick fix to test a few articles. Thanks heaps guys.
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