Link Cloaking

[fastfish720]

After doing a search for link cloaking I've found a couple of different methods.

I've decided to opt for something like this:

1. A User Visits my page and decides to click an affiliate link
2. Using a target="blank" A pop window comes up directing them to mydomain/exampleproduct
3. Using a meta redirect from mydomain/exampleproduct they are forwarded to the affiliate product page.

My question is, should I include a rel="nofollow" in step 3? and how would I go about including that into a meta tag:

HTTP-**zero**="Refresh"
CONTENT="0; URL=http://www.someproduct/affiliatelinkID.php">

[Linda Buquet]

Hi fastfish720,

Sorry I don't know because I never use that type of re-direct because back when I learned SEO meta refresh was a big no-no. Maybe it's changed now?

Most affiliates I know use htaccess and it has lots of advantages. One being you have one place to go to change links. For instance let's say an affiliate program closes and you need to substitute a different merchant - if you change the link in htaccess all your links no matter where they are on your site or even forum sigs change automatically.

There are a couple threads in this post with lots of info about link cloaking and it goes into a few different methods.

[jazzguy]

When I want to cloak a link I throw a shawl over it or a wind-breaker...that way no one is the wiser...

What I am saying is that I want surfers to know where they are going and every time I see a cloaked link or experience a redirect I exit that site immediately. There may nothing wrong with this tactic per se but it makes me wonder what it is someone is trying to hide.

[fastfish720]

Thanks, I found this plugin for wordpress that looks promising: (hope this type of link is ok)

ø Link Cloaking Plugin for WordPress | W-Shadow.com ø

[jaugustat]

I agree with Linda, I think something about that is a big NO for SEO, I remember reading that in a recent post here, see if I can find it and send you a link.

[Kellie AFP]

What I am saying is that I want surfers to know where they are going and every time I see a cloaked link or experience a redirect I exit that site immediately.

LOL JazzyGuy, redirects are how the majority of affiliate networks track affiliate traffic.

Link cloaking is/has been used by blackhat seo'ers. Many have moved on to other ways since the search engines have gotten smarter about detecting it. But it involves more than fastfish is talking about.

There can be very legitimate reasons for an affiliate to redirect their links (meta refresh, 301 or 302 redirects). It's very common for DB driven sites. It also provides extra analytics for the affiliate. For what FastFish is describing, they also get the benefit of knowing how many of their affiliate links and which ones were clicked on independently of what the network or merchant reports. The redirect pages will show in their stats, each page view means a click.

You can get some weird spidering with redirect pages by the SE's though that can be problematic. So if you want to avoid any problems with the engines there are a couple of things you can do:

1. Use the rel=nofollow. You'd put that tag in the a href link along with your target=blank tag
2. You can use the put no index in your meta tags on the page where your meta refresh is. Actually you can put no index, no follow.
3. You can put all your redirect pages into one directory so your link to the redirect page would be mydomain.com/merchants/redirectpage.html
You then add a line to your robots.txt file to not index the "merchants' directory.

2 and 3 are the most common ways I see other affiliates handle it. But you can do any of them or all of them if you really want to cover your bases.

[jazzguy]

H KellieAFP and thanks for the lesson. I had a completely different idea of redirect options and I should have known better... Also, I mentioned this on another forum but I read your interview in Revenue Magazine and loved what you had to say and what you are doing for the lot of us. Thank you and all the best.

[Kellie AFP]

Not sure that you should have known better. Redirects are just technology available. There are very legitimate uses for them. But like most things, some have used the technology for not so legitimate reasons. And link cloaking just sounds nefarious. It comes down to what the intent/purpose is.

Awww shucks on the Revenue article. That's very kind of you. Don't tell anyone but....Lisa P got me drunk so I would agree to doing that photo shoot thing that went with the interview. I still can't believe she talked me into doing that. LOL.

[Daniel M. Clark]

I'm a fan of PHP redirects - cloaking - for a couple of reasons. First, it makes things way easier to manage on my end. If I need to swap out a final destination link, I can do it in my PHP file and not have to touch my individual pages. I also like that it makes my links look better to my visitors. If I were linking to eBay for example, the link would look like:

.com/visit?eBay

So, it's very clear to the visitor where s/he's going to end up. This also looks better to the average, non-techie visitor who has been trained by years of spam & scam scares to avoid clicking odd-looking links (I'm lookin' at you, CJ ).

I'm also concerned that Google may be demoting sites with affiliate links. I'm still reading up on that, but if it's true, this method could help with that.

[jazzguy]

Originally Posted by Kellie AFP

Not sure that you should have known better. Redirects are just technology available. There are very legitimate uses for them. But like most things, some have used the technology for not so legitimate reasons. And link cloaking just sounds nefarious. It comes down to what the intent/purpose is.

Awww shucks on the Revenue article. That's very kind of you. Don't tell anyone but....Lisa P got me drunk so I would agree to doing that photo shoot thing that went with the interview. I still can't believe she talked me into doing that. LOL.

I think the photo shoot looked great. That long coat gave you a "Huntress*" look that meant business... I wouldn't wanna mess with you... Thanks again and take care.

* a character in the Batman Universe in case you were curious.