Clickbank - Not a Good Place for Newbies to Start

[KirkhamsEbooks]

Thanks I'll have to check them out. I thought PDC was the only one with those attributes

Rick

[coderWil]

Being a newbie at IM, I have been reading everything I can to figure out how to take full advantage of this beast.

I have started reading alot of ‘warnings’ that affiliates ‘need’ to cloak their affiliate links, especially with ClickBank’s hop links.

My question is this…
I fully understand the ‘how to’ cloak a link, but what I don’t fully understand is the prevailing reason ‘why’. I have read that it helps protect your links from being ’stolen’.

If someone ’steals’ my links and then uses it as their own, doesn’t that mean that I will still get paid on their work? If I ‘cloak’ a link by having a ‘middle page’ that redirects the user to the actual link, can’t the ‘link thief’ just ’steal’ the cloaked link and use it?

I guess my question is: What is it that people are doing with stolen links that makes it so horrible?

You can probably garner my ‘noob’ status by this post.

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Wil, I think you asked this on an old blog post of mine and I didn't get a chance to answer so glad you posted here.

In a brief nutshell (because I don't want to take this thread too off topic) if someone steals your link they replace your affiliate ID with their own and they get the commission that should have been yours. But there are other scenarios and a variety of related issues that come into play.

Here's a bunch of info - when you search Google there are over 60,000 pages talking about it.
clickbank commission theft - Google Search

For ways to cloak your links here is one of many threads here on the forum.
How to hide your affiliate links

[KirkhamsEbooks]

I'm right on topic here since it's primarily clickbank that allows affiliates to purchase products with their own affiliate link. So they may look at your source, copy the affiliate url and replace your user name with theirs to buy the product. Redirects can help, php scripts etc. Just be careful some affiliate links but show up in the address bar so a frame will prevent you from getting credit for the sale

Rick

[Linda Buquet]

Yes that's one way, but for an affiliate to have to steal much that way they have to buy products and spend money, so I don't think it happens that much.

The bigger concern is parasites. Affiliates that steal other affiliate's commission OUTRIGHT and in VOLUME. They just swoop down in the middle of the transaction process YOU started, with YOUR visitor and replace your hoplink with theirs. They do it with Adware.

Here's a video showing an affiliate link hijack live.
Clickbank Parasites and Adware Video

[coderWil]

Thank you. I have just been reading the description on: The Effect of 180solutions on Affiliate Commissions and Merchants

I have to say, I had COMPLETELY forgotten about those insideous programs that get downloaded from websites and mess up a users' settings. It didn't even occur to me. However, I do have 1 other question now.
Is it better to use a serverside technology to redirect the link or a http/javascript forward to redirect the link? My gut says serverside, because it never returns your affiliate link to the user's browser until it finally lands there, but there may be something that I am missing.

I am sorry if this is taking this too far off the original target of the post, however, I think that clickbank's system being too 'open' to these kinds of attacks, and how a noob, like myself can 'avoid' this part of the problem, can probably qualify this as a brief 'interlude' topic.

Thank you for your help!

William

[KirkhamsEbooks]

ya I forgot about that too thanks

Dirtbags

Rick

[Linda Buquet]

coderWil I'm honestly not sure about the best way. I think different people have different opinions. The link I gave to the thread here about cloaking links goes into different options and opinions.

THe one thing I stress is however you cloak, be sure it's not against the merchant's TOS (some programs use iframes for instance and that's against most TO). Also be sure to test the links to be sure they still track and still pass your cookie.

[gallito89]

I highly disagree with this statement, I have been teaching many of my friends and family the art of affiliate marketing and I always recommend Clickbank as the starting point, then moving to more advanced networks such as CJ at a later point.

[KirkhamsEbooks]

iframes are okay with cb and pdc

Rick