Hi Guys...Just thought I'd share this with you. I was going over some old articles that I wrote and published on Go Articles and I almost threw my computer out the window in rage. My Hop Links in the article had been changed and were now directed at another affiliate...There's no reasonable way someone else could have access to my Go Articles account, but obviously somebody got in and changed things around. Who knows how many sales I lost because of this? So, live and learn, I guess...A word of advice to fellow rookies: Go back and check your hop links from time to time...there are some real shady people in the world...
I think this practice is becoming more and more common these days. People are gradually cracking profiles and changing things around. It is really bad and and ruin a whole lot of article marketing efforts.
thats why it is more secure to use a domain to redirect your link rather than using a direct hop link
i guess ,you might have heard about link CLOAK if you didn't then follow the given link http://www.affordable-internet-marketing.com/2008/11/cloak-links-simple/ you can get all info here ,how to clock your affiliate link
Not good I say go back through and change your links back and change your password at all your sites! Chris
The best thing to do is buy a domain name. Anything really that relates to the niche you're writing articles for. Use that to domain to hardcode in all your articles. In your hosting acct do a permanent redirect with your affiliate link. This is also easier if you want to switch up where all your traffic is going quickly and easily. perhaps test another vendor. Don't have to login to all your articles and edit. Some hacker could still go in an remove your url i suppose. But perhaps if it doesn't look like a clear affiliate link with hop=12345 they'll move on looking for the easier un assuming switch of a hop=12345 Eric
more secure? not really. it just makes it easier to change where your link redirects to. as long as whoever compromises your account (eg. goarticles as the OP mentioned) can change the link on the article/page/whatever, then it doesn't matter how you link to your site - there is no "secure" way to redirect to your link. the only thing you can really do is check your links regularly. it only takes a few seconds.
Live and Learn well said... Have you though of Goarticles.com actually sabotaging profiles lately? I've never used hoplinks in my articles myself. Al.
Oh dear, so sorry to hear that. I dont think the employees of Goarticles will do that. I suspect someone manages to steal your profile. What about other article directories? Are the hoplinks still intact?
Just an update: I double checked my other articles at Go Articles and the other places I publish and all the other links are fine...It was just with that one article...The only thing I can think of is that Go Articles has a sister site that offers to publish your article immediately after you publish one in Go Articles...I registered at the sister site, using the same info...so, maybe that's it...but, then why only that ONE article? Hmmm...still puzzling... I think in the future I will just spring for a landing page and direct articles there instead of aiming everything at a specific article or Squidoo page... On follow up, though...I've heard of people "stealing" commissions from affiliates by replacing the hop link with their own...Other than hacking an account, is there any way to do this? I've tried to investigate online, but most info I get is rather vague...
Ya, by simply changing your links to redirect, even from a top level domain, wouldn't work if someone had access to change the link in the first place. They would just replace your link with their own, not just changing their hop ID. This could be from within the site itself (employees), or someone who just hacked into your account. I think it will be hard to really know what, unless you change your password and see if it still happens. I would screen shot before and after changing passwords and check back in a few weeks or so. Joel
Yes, I think a domain as link on your article is better than a direct affiliate link. It would be safer. Thanks for sharing this info. Now, its better to be extra careful.