I’ve been reading a lot lately about affiliate link hijacking and link cloaking. Do you recommend any particular link cloaking software or technique and/or are there any particular ones to steer clear of? I saw one ‘Covert Affiliate’ that in addition to cloaking affiliate links puts a tracking cookie on the visitors computer even if they don’t click on the link. They talk about having the ‘unfair advantage’… that concerns me that if you’re doing something ‘sneaky’ that it could actually bite you in the butt down the road.
There are two ways you can go about cloaking your links: set them up yourself or buy a program to automate the process.
Personally, I do it myself. In some cases, I use a little mouseover script, but that’s just to trick the casual observer – it won’t beat the schemers and spiders.
In the past, I’ve also used frames to cloak affiliate links. This has it’s limitations, but it’s quick and easy.
Another method is to purchase a domain and use the domain registrars forwarding service (free with most domain registrars) to have the domain redirect to your affiliate link.
The technique I use most often is the .htaccess redirect. An .htaccess file is a plain ASCII text file you place in the root directory of a Unix server.
The .htaccess technique is much easier than using other redirects, because there’s no HTML required. All of your redirects are in one text file.
One thing to bear in mind when cloaking your links is that you should add the afsrc parameter, so legitimate adware affiliates will recognize that you are an affiliate and not overwrite your cookie.
If you want to get a program that will help you set up the cloaked links, check out CBmall and search for cloaker or cloaking, and you will see lots of programs to consider.
As far as that program you mentioned that “puts a tracking cookie on the visitors computer even if they don’t click on the link” – stay far away from that one.
That is known as cookie stuffing, and it’s a big taboo. By doing that sort of thing, you’re no better than the thieves you’re trying to beat in the first place.
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okay so that cloaks my link on my page but what about the person who is buying……. will my affiliate id show up in their address bar when they click on this link. also is there a way to bypass the affiliate sales page and send my customers directly to the purchase page just incase the sales page is poorly designed?
Sure, just use a free URL shortening service like http://www.cli.gs
Is it possible to cloak a link on one of my blogs from blogger.com or can you oly do cloaking if you have your own hosting service?
I also have a Clickbank product I want to promote on my blog is it also possible when a person clicks on my affiliate link to have them bypass the clickbank merchants sale page and go directly to the clickbank purchase page.
Please help thanks
Hi Shawn
When i do a search for our website on google it shows as index.html in the main header for the site how do i change this to show op-biz
Nice patronizing comment when I’ve patiently tried to explain the creation of .htaccess redirects.
> The whole idea of link cloaking is to make sure that the person browsing and using your affiliate links doesn’t actually get to see the affiliate link ID.
That may be what you want to do, and if that’s the case, use a frame.
But that’s not the “whole idea” and it’s not at all why I do it.
I create redirects to cloak links from ad blockers.
I also make the redirects to shorten links.
Have a nice day.
I will make this clear so you understand. The whole idea of link cloaking is to make sure that the person browsing and using your affiliate links doesn’t actually get to see the affiliate link ID. So if creating a php file on your server is supposed to act as an affiliate link cloaker/redirect then the fundamental of this principle doesn’t work. How many affiliate marketing users use this principle and check their links to see if it is actually working. It works from the browser fine but that is not where it should be working.
then obviously it doesnt work
The purpose of this technique is to cloak the link before it is clicked.
right look ..the clickbank link on the op-biz website takes you to regfix but at the end of the url name it shows my affiliate ID, now my undestanding is that i created a php file to redirect so that when anyone clicks on this link on the op-biz website it will show exactly as i created with the php file … ie op-biz/recommends/registry-fix.php and not my affiliate ID ,so how is it supposed to cloak it. And also if my understanding is correct from what you said ,replacing the link with the op-biz/recommends/registry-fix.php file as an html link on the website would surely stop me getting commision from clickbank as it wont be the hoplink id i was given by them.
I am not sure where the communication is breaking down here – you simply point the redirect link to your affiliate link, and the redirect link is the one you out on your site.
surely if i use the link you suggest and replace the html link in the webpage then it will stop being a clickbank hop link
i have put the affiliate link in the recommends folder anyway so whats the difference i dont understand what you mean
i dont understand
That link is there, because it’s what you put there in the HTML of the page.
Just replace it with http://www.op-biz.com/recommends/registry-fix.php
http://op-biz.com/page4.html the link is on this page, see what shows in the browser when you click the click here link
It takes me to reigstryfix.com – I was asking for the url of the page on your site where you are putting this link.
try the link i have sent to you and see what comes up in your browser
this is my redirect link http://www.op-biz.com/recommends/registry-fix.php but when i type this now into my browser it actually changes to my hop link id and opens the pitch page so whats the point in redirecting if it still shows my affiliate id
the php works fine when i type the link into my browser, but when i click on the appropriate link from my website it still shows the hop link id when i go to the pitch page but now another problem arises when i type the php link in my browser it takes me to the relevant pitch page but automatically changes browser address to my hop link id again. what the hell do i have to do to solve this ridiculous problem
yes
What is your url? I am not clear about your problem… the affiliate link is displaying on your site, instead of the redirect link?
hi
i created a redirect cloak link php file in my cpanel when i typred the link in my browser it landed on the link page no probs….but when i clicked on the link from my website it still shows my hoplink ID why? so what would be the point of creating the redirect if it stll shows this from my domain site
I THINK I WILL JUST WRAP UP IT WAS A BAD IDEA IN THE FIRST PLACE
If the test I suggested works, just replicate it with the affiliate link.
these are my links
the afffiliate link is http://mongoose46.regfix.hop.clickbank.net/
the hoplink is
Click Here!
now what?
Hi Philip -
There is no script involved. If your .htaccess file is uploaded in the correct place, try including this line:
Redirect /google http://www.google.com
After uploading the revised .htaccess file to your site, type this into your browser:
http://www.YOURSITE.com/google
It should immediately redirect to Google.
Hi Shawn
Thanks for replying, i had actually emailed the software maker several days ago but he doesn’t seem to be in that much of a hurry to reply apart from keep sending me links to several products. I have created the .htaccess file in my public_html folder in the cpanel but thats where i get lost, not knowing how to create the script that needs to go in, as i said i know nothing about programming and most of the bloggs i have read assume you do.
Hi Philip -
I would suggest contacting the maker of Web Army Knife.
I am not familiar with the program and can’t say why it’s not operating correctly for you.
As far as link cloaking for several links on a page, there is no problem if you are doing it via .htaccess, which I use, but I can’t speak to the way Web Army Knife handles it.
If you know how to access FTP, I would suggest .htaccess as the method for creating your redirects.
I’ve broken it down in layman’s terms as much as I could at http://blog.affiliatetip.com/archives/affiliate-tip-use-htaccess-redirects/
Hi
I am very new to affiliate link marketing and dont understand anything about programming. I Have recently purchased Web Army Knife, basically it creates a code from the affiliate link that i put in, now here is where the problem starts…
I go to my cpanel open file manager create a new folder in the public_html file, call it say, “clinks”. Once that is done i create a file in this folder call it say, “regfix.html” then edit the folder and paste in the code created by Web Army Knife and save the file. Problem is when i go to my web page with the aff link on and click on it it still shows my aff link ID, so what an I doing wrong. And also if you place several links on on page does link cloaking still work.
Please try and explain this in laymans terms and you will be the first i have come across to do so yet.
I’ve wrote a small article dedicated to easy cloaking methods using JavaScript and PHP for others that are not so good with programming
http://richbeaver.com/webmasters/link-cloaking-step-by-step-guide/
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