Affiliate Link Hijackers

11 replies
Hey folks

Just wanted to ask: how rampant do you think this is?

If I were to pick a popular product on clickbank and promote it, how many of my sales will be stolen by link thieves?

I spent ages trying to promote products and not getting a single sale. Then I started using the ninja link cloaker and managed to get just one sale (but wasn't 100% sure if my cloaked link was used or another one)... also, is it possible the ninja link cloaker is just a scam where the guy who made it has his affiliate link in it, so all/most/some of your sales go to him???

I'm confoosed!! should I use a cloaker or can I trust direct clickbank hoplinks???

Thanks in advance :p
#affiliate #hijackers #link
  • Profile picture of the author 123rlp
    If it is a good product you can buy a domain name in have it redirrect to your hop link.If it is a IM product other affiliates will sell it to themselves.You have to give away good bonuses if you are going to permote a IM product.
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  • Profile picture of the author Matt.Lake
    In practically every other market apart from IM, no one has a clue what affiliate marketing is. So to answer your question, in ordinary niches, no, it is not rampant at all.
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Franklin
    It's not rampant but I would never use a direct clickbank hoplink! Use a domain that redirects to your affiliate link....It's very inexpensive and readers prefer to click on top level domains than long, ugly affiliate links.
    Signature

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  • Profile picture of the author Snow_Predator
    thanks guys, just needed some reassurance.
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  • Profile picture of the author googmagic
    i thought clickbank found a way to get over that..
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    • Profile picture of the author ladyshadowrider
      Originally Posted by googmagic View Post

      i thought clickbank found a way to get over that..
      There is a way to remove the ugly clickbank hoplink from the sales page URL, other than using an iframe/page cloak which is against clickbank's TOS, but it has to be set up by the clickbank vendor.

      It only takes about 1 minute to do, and requires that the vendor insert a snippet of code at the very top of the sales page.

      Unfortunately, most clickbank vendors don't know how to do it. And, the ones I've contacted and gave them the instructions for how to do it, chose not to make this tiny little change to help out their affiliates.

      They don't seem to care, because they're making money either way.

      JMHO!
      Tamara
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      • Profile picture of the author John Sullivan
        I believe that in the IM field it is quite common to occur but if you market other topics then most people don't know about affiliate theft.

        John
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  • Profile picture of the author Tracy Shaffer
    I think this is most common in the IM, make money niche, and if someone is from there, they're likely to use their own clickbank ID to buy the product, but no one has a clue about this outside of the IM crowd.
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    • Profile picture of the author bemore
      From what I've seen, clickbank now has their own link cloaker to help combat this. There are already programs out there that will uncloak the link so there's never a sure way to combat it. But I agree, outside the IM field, almost no one has heard of it or does it.

      Still, try to take every precaution you can and software to cloak them will discourage most. But like anything, a lock only keeps an honest person honest and if they really want to get in, they will.
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  • You are not looking at this from the right angle. The people who you think are "stealing" you links are not making money from them... they do it to buy the product for themselves cheaper.

    Those people will not buy from you anways.

    The people you need to be concerned about are the people who are programmers and sneaking in cookies that strip out your cookies into software programs that are planted in Adware or Spyware. Then there are people that are covertly placing cookies on all the sites they can. This is the real problem. At times some of them get caught and the ethical affiliate programs remove them... but if they are generating a lot of money they may not.

    So you happily cloak away... and oops if you do it wrong you strip out your own cookies because browsers and security software like to remove 3rd party cookies.

    Lots of ways to get burned. Add to this the fact that Search Engines are not real Affiliate Link friendly to begin with and you have a recipe for lost commissions.

    It's my understanding that Google is now crawling and utilizing javascript links. There isn't really much of a way to hide the fact that you are an affiliate marketer.

    But you can't obsess about it because the average guy doesn't know the difference between a regular link and an affiliate link nor do they care unless of course it looks really suspicious. The average guy doesn't understand what a cookie is.

    Ask you mom or you day or your wife or a friend... is this an affiliate link:

    Amazon.com: Computer Hard Drives: Internal Hard Drives, Micro Drives, External Hard Drives, Hard Drives

    You can't view your customers from your perspective.
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    • Profile picture of the author Snow_Predator
      Originally Posted by InternetMarketingIQ View Post

      You are not looking at this from the right angle. The people who you think are "stealing" you links are not making money from them... they do it to buy the product for themselves cheaper.

      Those people will not buy from you anways.

      The people you need to be concerned about are the people who are programmers and sneaking in cookies that strip out your cookies into software programs that are planted in Adware or Spyware. Then there are people that are covertly placing cookies on all the sites they can. This is the real problem. At times some of them get caught and the ethical affiliate programs remove them... but if they are generating a lot of money they may not.

      So you happily cloak away... and oops if you do it wrong you strip out your own cookies because browsers and security software like to remove 3rd party cookies.

      Lots of ways to get burned. Add to this the fact that Search Engines are not real Affiliate Link friendly to begin with and you have a recipe for lost commissions.

      It's my understanding that Google is now crawling and utilizing javascript links. There isn't really much of a way to hide the fact that you are an affiliate marketer.

      But you can't obsess about it because the average guy doesn't know the difference between a regular link and an affiliate link nor do they care unless of course it looks really suspicious. The average guy doesn't understand what a cookie is.

      Ask you mom or you day or your wife or a friend... is this an affiliate link:

      Amazon.com: Computer Hard Drives: Internal Hard Drives, Micro Drives, External Hard Drives, Hard Drives

      You can't view your customers from your perspective.
      Wow! Excellent post there InternetMarketingIQ!!!

      THIS is what I was worried about really - *******s that have nothing to do with me and my customers, swooping in and stealing my commissions!!

      So what do you advise? Do I use the Ninja affiliate link cloaker? Or just use raw affiliate links straight from ole clickie bank?
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