Hi fellow marketers, Here is a very important question, and hopefully someone will know the answer. Whether you are promoting a website, or a Squidoo page...or whether you are writing a blog or an article...or even whether you are posting classifieds... How do you cloak your affiliate link or hoplink from the viewer? I have read many posts (in other forums) where newbies, and even some of those that have been around for a while, have found this to be a delicate issue to contend with. You don't want the viewer to see "cb hoplink" at the end of your link or a number that clearly reads "affiliate ID..." It appears that many viewers and readers will try to circumvent the "hoplink" or "affiliate ID" just because they know it will create revenue for the one who has posted the article...or website. I have read that many viewers will actually go the "source" of the niche itself rather than help the affiliate marketer who is struggling with advertising the webpage (using free methods, or not). Your views, ideas, and suggestions will be certainly appreciated by everyone who has been, or is still, having to deal with this marketing strategy. Thanks. Jenevieve
the easiest way to cloak your affiliate link is using http://offto.net It's free and I've been using it for awhile, it works perfect to cloak my affiliate link...
You can use sites such as offto.net and tinyurl.net to forward your hop links, but many marketers know what those are and will either go around them or clear their cookies once they arrive at their destination. One method that I find useful is php redirects, as it doesnt look like a hop link, marketers aren't as suspicious, and the general population is none the wiser. In order to do that, create a php file by opening up a text editor, copy this code into it, and save it as "whatevernameyouwant.php": now just upload it to your server and anchor your link to it! I. e. instead of: It becomes:
Unless you're heavily marketing 'internet marketing related' stuff, you really don't have to really be concerned about this. Just use anchor text for your links, most general web surfers don't care or have any concern about the link under the text. And if you do want to redirect or cloak your link, here is a list of Best Free Shorts Urls that I have tried & tested.
Hey, Animaina 1 Here, Thank you for the link to the review and some great info. I have been looking for URL shorteners and tracking tools, Your Squidoo site review was very helpful. Thank You again. ME
I suggest get a good link redirect software. I use Manage Affiliate Links on each of my sites. This allows me to create a nice looking link for my visitors. The main benefit of Manage Affiliate Links is that it redirects dead, expired, or broken links to a backup link you choose. Click here to learn more about how to Redirect Dead Links. I suggest watching the videos to get a better understanding.
you could serve your affiliate cookie with a simple image. and link directly to the main merchant's site. people wouldn't suspect anything but they have been cookied and you will receive ur commissions if they buy.
I'd like to reply to Megaresp, please. Would you please be so kind as to explain why "cloaking" an affiliate link or Clickbank hoplink would have any influence on your "search engine optimization?" This appears like one is "between a rock and a hard place," so to speak. On the one hand, you know that 'customers' or 'would-be buyers' and marketers do go around an affiliate link just like Unknown03 said in his reply above. You lose sales this way. I know you do, because I have. I won't go into details at this point. Then, on the other hand, you want Search Engines like Google (for example) to index your website, webpage or whatever, through their "crawling" methods, so you can have a chance at getting the traffic you've worked so hard to get. Sound reasoning is required here. Jenevieve
I believe most has been said... you can certainly use a url shortening service... http://doiop.com/ http://tinyurl.com/ http://readthisurl.com/ http://memurl.com/ http://dwarfurl.com/ personally I don't like them... I either use a php redirect, mentioned earlier or a cloaking script... One simple one I used to use was ninja links (or something like that)... but I like the ones that keep track of your CTR
Sorry that I have been away for some time from this Forum...just had too much to organize offline. However, whereas I certainly appreciate everyone's suggestions and ideas on this subject, I had some difficulty arranging my affiliate link using the "php" code. It just didn't seem to work...I tried Googling my question, and, needless to say, Google had a minefield of sites..all addressing this question from one angle or another. On the one hand, it appears that not all computers, Mac or even Windows have "php" installed. I have an older Windows version, but I don't have Front Page Challenge or Dreamweaver, etc. I just tried using Notepad. I'm missing something here, and I haven't quite figured out what it is. I don't want to use Tiny URL, since I haven't read very good feedback on how it reflects back to the visitor or prospective customer. Every "php" instruction seems to indicate that you have to arrange it from within your site. But, in this case, this is not my site. The instructions tell you to "ftp" (whatever this means...I wish someone could please tell me) the "php" link (assuming you have created it of course) up to the "server." Can someone kindly explain what this means? As a newbie, I do have a lot to learn yet. Thanks.
to hide your affiliate link you can buy a .info for 99 cents from godaddy and forward and mask the link. So when someone clicks your link they will see only the domain you brought not the affiliate link.
I used Notepad to write my affiliate ID by inserting <?PHP at the start and ?> at the end (this may not make much sense for the experts in this Forum), and then saving it as "index.php. file." Although I have an older Windows version, my computer did save it as a PHP File, so the possibility is there for me to get this right. Now, DPF member Unknown03 wrote the following: May I please ask the experts who are thoroughly familiar with PHP, to please review the following examples? Let's take the following sample affiliate links : http://www.wealthyme.com?a_aid=d0RWnUx6 or http://www.wealthyme.com/affiliates/id/98641_8’ First of all, the site, "wealthyme.com" is not my site, but the marketer's site I'm affiliated with. My affiliate ID follows after .com. My above mentioned efforts in Notepad produced these sample results: <?php header('Location: http://www.wealthyme.com/affiliates/id/98641_8’);?> and <?php header( 'Location: http://www.affiliatelink.com/b679dw?sub=mytracking' ) ;?> The above samples still indicate it's an affiliate ID. Where have I gone wrong? I would certainly appreciate (and I'm sure I'm not the only one in this Forum) if someone would recreate in PHP the above two underlined samples in red, and come up with a "cloaked" PHP link. I thought I read somewhere that, when an affiliate ID is cloaked, it's actually either embedded in the article somewhere and the viewer doesn't see it, or, if displayed in a Bio box for example, it would appear as something like this: http://www.wealthyme.com/wealthymeaffiliate.php or like this: http://www.wealthyme.com/wealthymerecommends.php in the case of using "recommends" as a PHP redirect link. Something is eluding me here, I know. On the one hand, it's creating the cloaked link in the first place, so that the viewer doesn't identify the affiliate link and avoid it, and on the other hand, once the link is "cloaked," how will I know it's working before I submit it to an article or a blog? Thanks. Jenevieve
I guess I will end this thread on the following note: I found a free software application that is adaptable to my PC Windows version (similar in nature to the Nvu program most folks know about)...only better. It's a WYSIWYG HTML and CSS editor derived from Nvu in fact...an absolute marvel...and the PHP code for conversion is one of its components. Of course, please everyone keep in mind that I had to find something adaptable to an older Windows version. There might be other programs out there for more modern or recent Windows versions. However, it was well worth the time invested on researching this topic. For anyone interested, and to all those who helped with the above replies, here is the link: http://kompozer.net/ Thanks.
This is nice thread as the question is something much people doesn't know. I do have also one question about the SEO factor. What's the best way for SEO? (don't care about surfers or lost sales, just about SEO) Cloaking? (is cliaking the same as masking???) Redirecting with php?? Leaving the affiliate link as is?? hope someone can answer this
I don't think affiliates should rely on those URL shortener services. If their site goes down, you don't know it, you can't control it and none of your affiliate links work. The best option is to use an .htaccess redirect on your own domain. Then the links look like yoursite.com/productname or yoursite.com/keyword instead of some funky url shortener link. So it increases click throughs. Also if one of your merchants does not convert or goes out of business you can change the redirect in one place and all your links wherever they are change automatically. Additionally I think using .htaccess is easier than doing PHP redirects. Here's a good article about how to hide affiliate links on your own server with .htaccess. http://www.clickconsultants.com/using-htaccess-to-hide-affiliate-links Happy linking!