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Cloaking links - Using prefix like /go/?

by Live4TheRisk
5 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I was looking at a lot of the plugins for wordpress that do link cloaking and most of them allow you to change the prefix of the URL or you can use the presets like /go/ or /recommend/ for example.

I'm just curious whats the reason for the prefix.

Do you really need to use one?
Does it serve some type of advantage?

Wouldn't it be nicer to have the URL e.g. mywebsite.com/product?

Just nitpicking
#cloaking #links #or go or #prefix
  • Profile picture of the author vishwa
    Yes! It is Good For SEO. because Google did not like too much affiliate links, By cloaking the affiliate links you can simply by pass it. Affiliate links also looks very ugly and confuses users about where they are redirecting.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
    This type of "cloaking" as they put it in the brochure, is not cloaking at all. The crawler sees the whole affiliate link show.

    I heard a rumor that if you pass it through 7 x 301 redirects it will drop the crawl and not see the affiliate links. But it's only a rumor to make a stupid idea work in the first place.
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  • Profile picture of the author UMS
    The main reason for using a path like /go or /recommend is to ensure a unique URL.

    Say you have the page

    example.com/product

    Then you can't create a redirect (which is really what you are referring to as a cloaked link) with the same name, so using

    example.com/go/product

    or

    example.com/recommend/product

    just ensures it is unique.


    However, there's nothing stopping you from creating any unique link, e.g:

    example.com/get-product
    example.com/product-bargain
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    • Profile picture of the author Live4TheRisk
      Originally Posted by UMS View Post

      The main reason for using a path like /go or /recommend is to ensure a unique URL.

      Say you have the page

      example.com/product

      Then you can't create a redirect (which is really what you are referring to as a cloaked link) with the same name, so using

      example.com/go/product

      or

      example.com/recommend/product

      just ensures it is unique.


      However, there's nothing stopping you from creating any unique link, e.g:

      example.com/get-product
      example.com/product-bargain
      Thats what I thought. Thanks for the great response
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  • Profile picture of the author imsirigiri
    I would rather prefer using a short url than cloaking with extra /go/ in the link.

    domain.tld/affil_prod_name_code

    It looks neat and simple.
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