Do we really have to cloak my links?

That's not really the threat people are cloaking links for. They're doing it to wipe out referrers so that affiliate program managers can't see how you're promoting their sites, and use that information to compete with you.

For me personally, cloaking the affiliate link will make it look more presentable. Most affiliate link are long and it will not look nice on email and on website. It will also encourage people to click on the link as it does not look dubious.

By "cloaking" you guys mean redirecting your affiliate link with a page from your website? So if your affiliate link was pointing to amazon you would redirect it through a page like example.com/amazon right?
Thanks

Cloaking links is quite advantageous. The links will look more presentable and trustworthy ant they are less likely to go through spam filter that will significantly increase delivery rates. And finally it`s going to be easy for you to manage those links.

As a buyer, I prefer the streamlined version of a link, anything uncluttered is better for me.

The biggest reason why a normal person would want to cloak their links is to keep URL structure nice and tidy. Another reason (for a website) would be to have all your affiliate links in a separate folder and disallow the folder from being indexed or followed (SEO).

Considering how easy it is to do, I don't understand why anyone would NOT cloak their links.

My Favorite Way for Cloaking Affiliate Links in Wordpress (without a plug-in) - drunkonlife.net

Most people don't surf net in buying mode. So, some of them step away by clicking on links which are looks like product links. "Convert visitors to buyers" you know, there are lot of things have involved with that such as email capturing, follow up emails, Bonuses.......etc. In fact, this isn't a matter with visitors in buying mode. Apart form that, hiding of affiliate links form visitors doesn't give much help to save the affiliate commission because they expose everything when he goes to affiliate product page.

Cloaking of affiliate links with using short URL services also not recommended because it looks little unprofessional. So, you'll need to look forward with META or 301/302 redirection methods.

Cloaking can't give any help to prevent this issue because the only thing hacker needs to do it is, clicking on the link, creating own affiliate account, choosing the same product, clocking the affiliate link and publish it on your site.

Perhaps, you'll never ever be able to find out the hack if you have cloaked affiliate links with short URL services . Why?

Examples,

shorturlservice/AdGv0kLI <-- YOUR LINK
shorturlservice/AdGvokLI <-- HACKER'S LINK

shorturlservice/AdGvkLI <-- YOUR LINK
shorturlservice/AbGvkLI <-- HACKER'S LINK

They don't have to publish it on your site. Some will strip out your affiliate link, put their own affiliate link in, and buy it from that. They can put the complete link in their browser address bar.

You lose the commission, but just for that one sale.

Mostly it happens with internet marketing products. Others would be much safer and probably not worth worrying about.

Do you have to? No.

But it will help you look more professional with a cleaner looking link.

If you're in the IM niche and promoting clickbank products it's a little more important, although most shady clickbank theives will still search out the product affiliate page and switch your affiliate link to theirs when purchasing.

It's on of the reasons I don't use clickbank.. they've made stealing commissions something widely acceptable by most people who know about it. It doesn't seem right to me, so I've strayed from their affiliate program to better ones.

Isn't it good practice to setup a cheap domain and install something like Pretty Links lite on it which you can cloak links. Then you can link to that cloaked link from your blog.

The reason I use this was for a couple of reasons:
1. Multiple blogs in similar niches, and promote the same product then the both can link to the same link (only set it up once, not 10 times for 10 sites).

2. If a product goes down and no longer is being sold, you can update all your network promotions to a different product instead - time saver when this happens.

3. Google - I am always under the believe cloaked links look odd from Google's perspective. And eventually the cloaked link tools and how they set it up is eventually going to cause a problem in one of Google's updates (if not already - we know they don't like affiliates) - this puts a little bit different spin on it so you are linking to a completely different domain straight away (and it doesn't have any affiliate code in the link as it would be something like www.specialdealslist.com/IMsuccess) it's not purfect but linking to another domain which then redirects may help a little bit with google not penalizing you but the other site which doesn't rank for anything. Eventually Google probably will crack down on that too... but it's just a conversation I had with a couple of people which was why we all were implementing this.

Well that really depends, I remember having a wordpress site. I masked it up as a membership site, but it didnt have the "checkpoints" a membership site had and I decided to shut it down early.
A week later some guy left a comment on my dashboard inquiring why I shut it down, and also telling me to reset my Passwords.
Pretty spooky, but yea hacking can happen.

Not sure if cloaking is a great idea.. But I can tell you that sending direct links is a BAD idea.

What if your links change over the years?

Imagine if you send 10,000 emails over the years with a straight link to an affiliate link.

What happens if that service goes away, or the link changes?



All of your links out there will be no good.

But, if you use a simple redirect, you can always go and change the whatever link your redirect changes.

And that way, every old backlink you ever create or promote will remain active.

I hope that makes sense..