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Cloaking links or Website Forwardings?

by CPAmum
9 replies
Hi all,

Thanks for all of you help in the past. Great forum!

Question: If you're using classified ads to push traffic to your affiliate page, is it better to

1) Cloak your affiliate link (if so, what service is the best?) or
2) Link to one of your Websites that will immediately forward to your affiliate page?

To make things easier, I was thinking about simply cloaking my link, but have read negative things about some of the cloaking services. Plus, shortened links look a bit strange, but I'm interested in learning more about good cloaking methods.

Thanks again!
#cloaking #forwarding #forwardings #links #website
  • Profile picture of the author Jacob Hargreave
    Personally I would lean more towards website forwarding since there is no way to alter your affiliate link. I do have link cloaking software but in all honesty it's only good for tracking clicks, and looking good.

    The software I use makes a clean link but once it's clicked you will see the affiliate link in the address bar, which can be altered by the visitor which will pretty much rob you of your commissions although its a rare happening but better safe than sorry I say.
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  • Profile picture of the author CPAmum
    Thanks much!

    I wonder if there's any link cloaking software out there that makes the links look good, tracks the clicks and ALSO hides the actual link in the address bar?
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    • Profile picture of the author Jacob Hargreave
      I am sure there is, in fact i think linktrackr does but it's a monthly fee if memory serves. However I don't really see the point of paying for something I can do myself.
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  • Profile picture of the author netnutmike
    CPAmum,

    Do you have a hosting account anywhere? Some hosting providers will do this for you. Dreamhost comes to mind. I have not used them in a while. But if you have a hosting account, setting up either a forward or cloaked link is pretty easy.

    To answer your original question as to which is better though. It is best to make sure wherever you getting your classified from will take one or the other.

    For example, Google Adwords will not take forwards.

    Another option if you have a wordpress blog is to look at the ninja affiliate plugin. It can do both options right from your blogs admin panel and even track clicks, etc.

    Another free option would be to go to something like bit.ly and get a short link and send traffic to it.
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    Mike Myers
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  • Profile picture of the author CPAmum
    Thanks much! (And...so much great software out there! Always interesting to hear about it!)
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  • Profile picture of the author Fictional
    I link to another domain that redirects, but I don't think there's a good reason why.
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  • Profile picture of the author dv8domainsDotCom
    Heh, I have a pretty obfuscated method that is essentially a frame-based redirect.

    The page script uses "Get" variables (so I can link like: abc.com/?recommend=someproduct)
    I have logic that decides if it's a CB product or AMZ product, or a 3rd party site (those have to use a manual target for the link) where CB prod and AMZ prod can just use the ASIN or vendorID). On the WP pages I use a macro that wraps it in script so the "status" bar in the lower left keeps my URL (the "cloak") and when it opens the address bar says "www.myurl.com/locate/?recommend=someproduct" while the frame opens the correct target.

    I've been throwing around the idea of using curl or something to avoid the frame entirely which would essentially 'mirror' the target page, but on my server. In theory the tracking should stay in tact, regardless of the target. Would be fun to play with but I don't have the time to invest (although in theory it wouldn't take "that much" to do this, but meh, I'm lazy).
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    • Profile picture of the author vMartin
      There is no reason to use a third party website to forward or cloak your links.

      If you have a domain and hosting it's easy to do.

      I actually wrote a article on how to do this:

      How to cloak your affiliate links | Marketing Revolt

      This should help.
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  • Profile picture of the author g36
    My choice is:
    2) Link to one of your Websites that will immediately forward to your affiliate page

    Simply because shortened links are fishy, so chances are, you get less clicks with shortened links.
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    :)

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