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  1. #1
    akira07's Avatar
    akira07 is offline IM & SEO Mumbler akira07 is on a distinguished road
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    Affiliate Link - Cloack or no? - The Truth

    I’ve checked and there is no one discussing about this yet. So like the title said, do you cloack your affiliate link? Why?

    I’ve read so many affiliate marketers recommending to cloack affiliate link. Even so, I tried to put direct affiliate link (no cloack) on my website and found that the conversion is still good. In simple words, it didn’t affecting anything.

    Aren’t visitors will immediately now the website after they’re clicking it? So, what’s the difference with just placing pure affiliate link? I think people are okay to buy from your affiliate link since you can provide them good review on the product.

  2. #2
    pagerank7 is offline IM & SEO Weak Jaw pagerank7 is on a distinguished road
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    That's probably a bigger issue in the Internet marketing niche, cause buyers in this niche know about affiliates and stuff, and they might try to buy the product through their own link.

    For other niches, people won't know/care so much.

  3. #3
    stronywwwlublin's Avatar
    stronywwwlublin is offline IM & SEO Small Talker stronywwwlublin has a spectacular aura about stronywwwlublin has a spectacular aura about stronywwwlublin has a spectacular aura about
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    cloacking links is ``+40% effective for my nieches
    Cloacking is just part of IM

  4. #4
    StarkReality's Avatar
    StarkReality is offline IM & SEO Whisperer StarkReality is on a distinguished road
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    I' masking affiliate links as well, since noone can delete the affiliate ID this way and links often simply look better and less frightening than the 1000 characters links some programs have. Be careful with the wording, it's masking if we are talking about using a php redirect or similar google can follow.

    Cloaking is showing the bot something different than visitors, actually cloaked links can get you site banned fast!
    Need high PR backlinks that work? Read my ALN review and join the forces!

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  6. #5
    wink0r's Avatar
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    Be careful with the wording, it's masking if we are talking about using a php redirect or similar google can follow.
    This is true, but the term cloaking is often used when masking is meant. I have done it both with a plugin for WordPress and manually on some static sites, though thinking about it there is probably little value aside from the cosmetics. If I want to get to a site without the affiliate code I can usually get there one way or another. I have seen it recommended several times, but the first time I heard about it was from someone selling a software that does the job. It was in his best interest to make people worry about showing affiliate links in the clear. Most affiliate links are masked to some extent by the use of anchor text or are embedded within a banner. Not too many people even look at the link behind the anchor text or banner before they click on it (or even know how to check in many cases).

    I recently accepted a guest post and the author was very upset by the link cloaking (masking) plugin I was using. He referred me to the Google Webmaster Guideline page about cloaking, which does not speak to masking affiliate links. I deleted the plugin for his comfort rather than trying to instruct him about the practice.

  7. #6
    akira07's Avatar
    akira07 is offline IM & SEO Mumbler akira07 is on a distinguished road
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    Quote Originally Posted by pagerank7 View Post
    That's probably a bigger issue in the Internet marketing niche, cause buyers in this niche know about affiliates and stuff, and they might try to buy the product through their own link.

    For other niches, people won't know/care so much.
    Do you mean internet marketing niche?
    Haha, it's true but we shouldn't care about people with that bad habits...it's waste of time and we can't control it..
    You can find there are many people still have good habits by buying via your link if you can giving valuable information about the product you're selling

  8. #7
    StarkReality's Avatar
    StarkReality is offline IM & SEO Whisperer StarkReality is on a distinguished road
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    Quote Originally Posted by akira07 View Post
    Haha, it's true but we shouldn't care about people with that bad habits...it's waste of time and we can't control it.
    Right, but at least many platforms disallow it and will void this kind of "self rebate" when buyers abuse the affiliate program to get a discount for themselves. Clickbank still seems to tolerate it, what a shame!
    Need high PR backlinks that work? Read my ALN review and join the forces!

  9. #8
    Seo Boy's Avatar
    Seo Boy is offline IM & SEO Whisperer Seo Boy is on a distinguished road
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    I haven't yet used cloaking & don't think that I will use it as I use Vigilink on my blogs. So their is no need of cloaking for me.

  10. #9
    shinjukusamurai is offline IM & SEO Quiet One shinjukusamurai is on a distinguished road
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    what is the right definition about cloacking from two definition below?
    1. change the affiliate URL with services like shorten URL
    2. stolen somebody website traffic to my own purpose
    or maybe the both above is wrong
    thanks

  11. #10
    econtinue's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by pagerank7 View Post
    That's probably a bigger issue in the Internet marketing niche, cause buyers in this niche know about affiliates and stuff, and they might try to buy the product through their own link.

    For other niches, people won't know/care so much.
    This is true.
    In IM they go as far as looking for the product name on google and go through the official website, because they know it's an affiliate link.

    I'm also using php redirect for my affiliate links.
    If you don't know how this works you can find it on my affiliate info page here.
    You can also download the file I'm using directly.

    Andre

  12. #11
    abhiz is offline IM & SEO Whisperer abhiz is on a distinguished road
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    I didnt used any cloaking yet! please let me know what is the cloaking about? Stressing Visitors to buying a product?

  13. #12
    barracudalink is offline IM & SEO Quiet One barracudalink is on a distinguished road
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    enjoy with your style .. if one of them (cloacked or no) work for U its the best for U :P

  14. #13
    burgers is offline IM & SEO Whisperer burgers is on a distinguished road
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    What about Amazon affiliate links? I've used plugins like Prettylink to mask the affiliate links to Amazon, but recent have been reading some stories about some people's Amazon Affiliate account suspended due to cloaking (masking?) the links, citing references to their Terms of Service. I haven't had that problem with my cloaked links but if it is true that Amazon doesn't like their links hidden, then that may be something to consider as well. Has anyone had experience with account suspensions due to cloaking?

  15. #14
    quickbrown is offline IM & SEO Quiet One quickbrown is on a distinguished road
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    Quote Originally Posted by abhiz View Post
    I didnt used any cloaking yet! please let me know what is the cloaking about? Stressing Visitors to buying a product?
    Cloacking is just like hiding your affiliate link from its original form

  16. #15
    trexship's Avatar
    trexship is offline IM & SEO Weak Jaw trexship is on a distinguished road
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    There are many suggestion about this thing from many Gurus if they can call that. Some of them recommend to cloak an affiliate link but the others don't.
    I don't care about those, all I do care is about my selling. My all site don't do this cloak techniques but the selling is good. All I have to do is tell people that some of my links are affiliate links. Be honest to them is the important key for me.
    my signature is no signature.... for now.

  17. #16
    stupidpenguin's Avatar
    stupidpenguin is offline IM & SEO Mumbler stupidpenguin will become famous soon enough stupidpenguin will become famous soon enough
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    "URL re-writing" is also done for seo purposes to make it seem like there are less outbound links whether they be affiliate links or not. It is true that Amazon links should not be shortened. Not sure if it says that verbatim, but it does say that people must know they're going to amazon. If you say that and give them a "pretty link", it shouldn't be a problem. These days I have been re-writing urls to all aff links except those that are in the g00gle aff network. ie, those from doubleclick... Basically trying to kiss Gbot @ss... who knows if it works.

    In IM, there are cases of aff link jacking, etc... as a reason, but have never experienced it myself, so that doesn't worry me too much. It's interesting that cj.com gives you the option to encrypt links when making aff links.

  18. #17
    franberries's Avatar
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    i think it depend on certain buyers.. normal buyer i don't think they will look into details what is affiliate link all about.. they just buy and forget about it... but buyer with a little knowledge of IM maybe i would say they really care about cloack link
    Addicted to IM

  19. #18
    glendene's Avatar
    glendene is offline IM & SEO Weak Jaw glendene is on a distinguished road
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    I am currently trying to find out if my AFF links have been highjacked. My sales sales suddenly dropped off to zero from a steady daily flow a few weeks ago. I am not sure how I can 1/. find out if they've been highjacked and 2/. what is the best way to cloak them, and 3/. even if I cloak them now, will this make any difference to the links that have already been jacked. If anyone has any advice for me about this I would really appreciate it.

  20. #19
    utuxia is offline IM & SEO Quiet One utuxia is on a distinguished road
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    By "cloaking" you just mean doing a 301 from a pretty url to the affiliate link? I don't see how this can harm your site, it's done on almost every blog or site out there. I redirect /go/vps to my vps affiliate link.

  21. #20
    Doktus is offline IM & SEO Whisperer Doktus is on a distinguished road
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    Quote Originally Posted by burgers View Post
    What about Amazon affiliate links? I've used plugins like Prettylink to mask the affiliate links to Amazon, but recent have been reading some stories about some people's Amazon Affiliate account suspended due to cloaking (masking?) the links, citing references to their Terms of Service. I haven't had that problem with my cloaked links but if it is true that Amazon doesn't like their links hidden, then that may be something to consider as well. Has anyone had experience with account suspensions due to cloaking?
    I heard it too. In my Amazon sites I'm not cloaking their links. Sometimes I use I'm using PHP redirect to mask my links. It is very easy to do.

    Open Notepad and put a code: <?php
    $url='here is your affiliate link';
    header("Location:$url");
    exit();
    ?>
    Save page with .php extension and upload to your site root.

    That's all.

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