Is Link Cloaking Necessary for Niches Outside IM?

I would think cloaking would also be needed on webmaster resource type sites, but I'm not sure what people think about others like sports or pharmacy.

I always cloak links, mostly for tracking purposes though, and for 'future-proofing' it. It makes it convenient if you ever need to change the affiliate link. Say you create a webpage on your site that is a redirect to your affiliate link, then all you would need to do is change the link on that one page, instead of having to locate and change the affiliate link on all of the places you have posted it.

Link cloaking is needed no matter what affiliate program you are pushing. The reason why is because it is human nature to say "why should I make you money" - That is not directed towards any one person or any group of people, it's just human nature.

I spent several years in affiliate management so let me give you a few more tips..

* Do not ever use a banner that has the companies domain name on it. If you do then you are asking to lose sales. If you have a merchant that has banners with only the domain name then ask for a blank one or ask if you are allowed to modify the banner yourself.

* Never mention the actual name of the product when doing promotion off site, for example: classified ads, email blast, and etc.. The reason why is this - If you place a simple off site ads that says:

Order Nostalgic Candy & Retro Candy Gift Baskets direct from our Candy Crate

Well obviously all some has to do is go to google and search to find Candy Crate, so instead you would actually use a more generic name.

Order Nostalgic & Retro Candy Gift Bags from our Candy Warehouse

So it makes it a little harder for someone to figure out, thus if they really want it they are more opt to click the link.

Although your links have nothing to do with IM as you stated, I do see many marketers making the mistake of using actual name in promotions and they just have no idea how many sales it cost them.

James

Cloaking isnt needed. Redirection links are.

Google MIGHT consider affiliate links as "non optimal" in terms of site quality...so i prefer to cloak whenever i can to conceal affiliate links. They just don't "look" good.

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Cloaking isn't needed. Redirection links are.
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what he says!

I've found it does increase conversions. I believe this is because a lot of people are weary of long, odd looking links. A lot of spam links are long and complicated looking and even though not everyone know about affiliate marketing, everyone knows about spam.

An awful lot of people are seriously offended at the idea that you get paid when they buy something. They wouldn't plug their own affiliate ID into the URL... they'd just take yours off. They don't do this to make money, or to save money, but simply to avoid giving you any.

Why? Because f&#k you, that's why.

So yeah, cloak your links.

Link cloaking also just makes good sense because it's easier to track your clicks with a link cloaker. It also makes for a much cleaner look and feel to your website.