Affiliate cloaking is where you cloak your affiliate links so that people won't be aware that the link they're clicking on is an affiliate link rather than a regular link.
There are many different ways to go about cloaking your links, and this article will cover some different ways as well as the importance of cloaking.
Affiliate cloaking has become more of a necessity these days as more and more people are aware of affiliate links.
Some people prefer not to click on affiliate links, and these are the people who are costing you money.
There are also some people who will see an affiliate link and remove your unique affiliate code, leaving just the base URL.
This removes any chance for you to earn a commission if they decide to buy.
A third group of people will replace your affiliate ID with their own, earning them the commission instead of you.
As you can see, cloaking links is a must to ensure that you're earning as much money as possible for your online efforts.
You want to do everything you can to avoid all three scenarios that I described above.
The way in which you go about cloaking your affiliate links will come down to personal preference and effectiveness.
Here are some of the more popular methods to cloaking links: Many affiliate marketers choose to use URL shortening services to mask or cloak their links.
This is usually effective and offers users the ability to track their URL's stats, which is very handy.
This method also makes the long, ugly affiliate link more attractive.
A drawback is that more and more people are using this method, and people are becoming aware of it.
Many people now associate shortened URL's as being affiliate links.
You'll have to weigh the pros and cons and decide if this method is right for you.
Another popular method is using a URL redirect.
With this affiliate cloaking method, a new sub-directory or file is created within the affiliate's website's file manager.
This method will require you to have your own website, which is a drawback to those who don't have a website or blog.
To use this method, a simple redirect code is inserted into the HTML portion of the file that redirects the URL you chose to the affiliate link URL.
This is a very effective method because the link appears to be part of the affiliate's website.
The drawback to this method is that once the URL redirects to the affiliate link, the link will be visible in the browser's URL bar.
The best method is to create a new sub-domain or file as talked about in the previous method.
But, instead of using a redirect, you use a program to encrypt the affiliate link.
After the encryption process, which takes under a second, you'll be given code to insert into the new file.
This code will make the link open under your website's URL, completely cloaking the affiliate link.
What your visitor's will see is your URL at all times with no way of knowing what the affiliate URL is.
Encryption programs can be found free on the internet to aid you in the process.
Affiliate cloaking is something every affiliate marketer should utilize to ensure they're making as much money as possible online.