Very Newbie - Link Cloaking Questions

[mickcharm]

Hi all, very new here, in the process of modifying a wordpress site and just trying to get my head around things.
The thing that is really playing in my mind at the moment is link cloaking.
I've read alot about domain forwarding, cookie manipulation and IDs getting lost. HELP.
I've clicked on Affiliate Lifestyle and signed up for a 6 day course.
Anyway had better press on.

Cheers from down Under (Australia)
Michael
Put another shrimp on the barbie

[AffiliateGuild]

Hi there,

Well, link cloaking can be done a few different ways, but you want to be careful in how you do it. Search engines see it as manipulating them, so sometimes you can get punished ... and of course, the rules are always changing.

You have to learn those rules ... so, reading like you're doing is good. Learn when to cloak and when not to even for the same affiliate link.

Some of us have cloaking tools we use to help us, but we don't use them every time.

Some affiliate networks like LinkConnector and Kowabunga (I think they still offer it) have naked link technology which is basically cloaked links right from the get-go ... but you have to contact your Affiliate Manager and ask them to hook you up to it.

This thread should probably be in the Newbie Forum too ... that's where you can ask all kinda of questions and get help.

[Linda Buquet]

HI Michael,

Welcome to 5 Star.

Other things to be careful of when cloaking links

1) Test to be sure they track. Some re-directs lose the cookie or could be malformed and cause the link to not track properly.

3) Check the affiliate program TOS. Some link protection software that you can buy does cookie stuffing which is against the TOS of most reputable affiliate programs.

Cookie stuffing is planting a cookie on the user when the page loads without the user ever clicking the link.

Moving this to newbie forum.

[RiverRock]

My motto is keep it simple. Just use html to cloak it. If someone really wants to bypass an affiliate link they are going to whether or not you cloak or not. Don't let worrying about cloaking stop you from moving forward. Just do it.

[EnigmaValdez]

As someone else suggested, my advice is the same - keep it simple and keep it honest. Do you want to spend all your energy and time on trying to keep up with the latest black hat tricks and risk getting shut down permanently by the big dogs?