Just a topic I find interesting. Who here cloaks their affiliate links to make them not look like affiliate links? And what do you think of this practice? Right? Wrong? Indifferent?
I don't. The only people that care are webmasters. The general public does not know what an affiliate link is, they assume banners and such are advertisements. Besides I have 3 stores independent of my blog that I use for the majority of my affiliate sales.
Is that really true? I have quite a few friends that know nothing about building websites but are relatively computer literate and they know somethings up with affiliate url's and purposely avoid them.
They're powerful, but can be dangerous when they're not used properly. A great way to mask them is to write the content of the page containing the affiliate link in an editorial manner (such as a product review) and to sprinkle the affiliate links lightly throughout the copy. If you know how to use calls to action and other psychological weapons to your advantage, you'll be able to get a lot of clicks on those affiliate links - and if you've really optimized the Web copy, get people to buy the product as well.
Great points actually! But it really doesn't matter in a store that is nothing but product...the whole thing is an affiliate link, and it doesn't show up like it does with a banner, or link on a blog or website (the big long code). It may be true that some people know of affiliate links, but if they trust the source and the content in which it is placed, they will click them to get to the product....that's why they are there...aren't they, to see what you have to offer?
That may be the case. But if you get a visitor from search engines they may not trust you. Loyal readership will buy through links, but cloaking seems to be more about converting the rest of the people.
That does make perfect sense. I never had much luck with masking links, none of the methods seemed to work for me, and I change products too much on the home page, with different affiliate programs. It was easier to just put up full product stores and direct the traffic to them. I call it "Masking affiliate links for idiots", because I could just never get it to work right
Well, my focus was on content sites when I wrote that post, but I'm sure with a little ingenuity, it can be adapted to work with/on product pages as well. I'd probably go with a link (once the checkout has been completed and the product purchased) that says something to the effect of "you may also be interested in this" which points to an external site (perhaps an affiliate site you run - hint hint) which contains a product review for a similar product to the one which the customer bought that contains an affiliate link. Ok, I'll put my mad-hatter evil genius side back in the dungeon before he causes anymore trouble.