Link cloaking
January 2, 2008 – 3:09 am
If you know the meaning of “affiliate” then you will definitely want to read about Jack Keifer’s Amazing Cloaker. It is one of several commercial affiliate link cloakers, or URL cloakers, on the market. I have not tested them all, but I have used Amazing Cloaker as well as tried two other free methods of link cloaking. One thing I do know is that Jack’s product is simple to use and very flexible and offers several unique benefits over the free methods of cloaking. First though, just in case you are wondering …
Why cloak your links?
As an affiliate you risk losing income as a result of different actions or reactions of your site visitors. The three main benefits of cloaking your URLs are:
- Affiliate link cloaking helps maximize your affiliate income. It does this by reducing the accidental or intentional removal of your affiliate ID from the URL. See below for how this can happen.
- Your site visitors benefit as they see a user-friendly URL instead of what can sometimes be a clumsy looking URL with numbers and other codes.
- Visitors can sometimes be hesitant to click a link to a product that you are recommending if it looks like you are only making the recommendation to pick up a commission. A cloaked link, combined with a genuine story about how the product has helped you save time or money, will help improve the look of the link and reduce unnecessary anxiety about following your recommendation.
Stop for a moment and imagine the following scenario.
You have tried and tested the products you want to promote. You sign up with the affiliate program, set up your web pages, gather testimonies, add your affiliate-coded URL and wait for the commissions to start rolling in. But for some reason although you are getting page hits, you are not getting as many sales commissions as you expected. One reason might be that your affiliate URL is being altered. Sometimes this happens by accident, sometimes by design. Either way, you are missing out on income. Just imagine how much difference it would make if you were to get just one more sales commission per day!
There are a number of reasons for loss of affiliate commissions. Here are two key reasons.
1. Affiliate ID is replaced
A visitor to your site copies your URL, pastes it into their browser (minus your affiliate ID), sets up their own affiliate account and replaces your affiliate code with theirs. They get a discount on their purchase (some affiliate programs frown upon this but there isn’t much that can be done to avoid it) and you get nothing for your efforts. Affiliate URL cloaking provides the immediate benefit of “hiding” the sometimes ugly affiliate encoded link and provides your visitors with a user-friendly URL to click on.
2. Affiliate ID is removed
The visitor simply reads the website address from your un-cloaked URL. Even if you try to hide it, there are several other ways to copy the link. The visitor then simply deletes the affiliate ID and goes directly to the merchant’s site and you lose out again. The Amazing Cloaker works to prevent this from happening. An added benefit of using the Amazing Cloaker is that you can choose to be upfront with your visitors and give them the destination website or you can hide it completely until after they click on the link. You make the choice.
But isn’t link cloaking deceptive?
Some people might view cloaking as deceptive. By clicking on a mystery link they may end up at an undesirable destination. The Amazing Cloaker gives you the tools to create user-friendly page names, titles and common sense URL link wording to assure your visitor that the link is genuine.
Preventing loss of your affiliate commissions
As I mentioned before, there are three main methods of cloaking affiliate links or any links for that matter. There are dozens of different ways of achieving the same outcome, but I have narrowed it down to my favorite, top-performing three. The great thing is that the first two are FREE.
1. TinyURL
The TinyURL re-direct. The quickest and easiest! Although it is free it is less effective than the next two options. It does not require you to load anything to your web server as it is externally hosted on TinyURL.com. It does not give the most attractive link but it does get the job done quick and easy. You do it by going to the TinyURL website, enter your destination URL and TinyURL generates a simple code (for example: http://tinyurl.com/yqslhm) which you paste into your forum post, website text and where ever you want people to follow your affiliate link. The limitations are that once it is posted onto a forum or some other place where you do not have the ability to edit your post, there is no way to edit the TinyURL. This can become a problem if your affiliate ID link is changed or you decide to use another affiliate program.
2. PHP redirect
The PHP redirect. Fast, free and effective. It does require you to have PHP running on your server (99.9% will) and you will have to upload a PHP file. This option has some key advantages over TinyURL. First, is the ability to edit the link name and destination URL. You simply cannot change the TinyURL link once it is created. Second, for the affiliate marketer just starting out and reluctant to pay for “another affiliate marketing tool” the PHP redirect is perhaps the best method to start out with.
3. Amazing Cloaker
The Amazing Cloaker method. All the bells and whistles, advanced protection and cloaking. I personally prefer the Amazing Cloaker for the many benefits it delivers. It is simple to use. Easy to access from a desktop shortcut. It is packed with options that give you the power to choose just how much cloaking you will implement. It works with all the main affiliate networks and programs. With the most powerful settings selected, it will gives you maximum cloaking coupled with advanced cookie techniques, that work to maximize your return on investment. How?
The advanced cookie feature helps capture affiliate commissions even if visitors unintentionally remove or damage your affiliate ID. This might happen when the visitor reads your product review today and goes directly to the website at a later time. There is usually no malicious intent, it might be that they remembered the name of the site you referred them to and wasn’t in the mood to buy the first time. When they first read your review, with the advanced cookie feature enabled, a cookie is placed on their computer that links your affiliate ID with the eventual purchase.
I have started to use link-cloaking for most of my online activities. Without it there is a risk of losing a considerable percentage of my commissions that are a part of my product recommendations. Whether you choose the free methods or opt to go with a premium product can I suggest that you take a few moments now to consider how link cloaking can benefit you.
Brendan.
