New Way to Hide Links?

[JumpNJack]

Hi Guys,

I have been playing around with some of the cloaking sites and discovered a site called: Tiny URLs.

You probably know about it.

But it's a Free way to cloak a link.

I am using it for the new report I've uploaded.

Let me know if you are using the site too.


Thanks

Jack

 

[djbaxter]

Personally, I hate TinyURLs or any other variety of shortened link. I like to know where I'm going before I click on something.

But maybe I just don't understand the burning need to cloak links in the first place.

 

[Ron Bechdolt]

Minstrel is right and there has been a lot written about this very thing. Look at it from the consumer point of few, if you saw a link like that would you want to click on it? Good consumers know the difference.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Agree with all above

Plus tinyURL isn't new, it's been very overused and spammed to death (especially by affiliates) so most people run when they see a tiny link assuming it's spam.

 

[breadnbutter]

I refuse to click anything suspicious that I do not know the destination of. I think tinyURLs are shady... only a matter of time until they are abused (Unless of course they already are!)

I thought redirects were bad enough!

 

[Slips715]

I guess I'm way off, I thought the point was to put hidden links to a site all over the web, so that it seems like a popular site and it comes up higher in the search engine organic searches. What am I thinking of??

 

[Linda Buquet]

Well slips, you're right when it comes to building links for your OWN web site.

In this thread they are talking about masking affiliate links. A traditional raw aff link isn't: yoursite.com/product it may look long and ugly like: adtracker.com/?affid=38f8je8/CID=ri40sdf

Some people think consumers are less likely to click a long ugly affiliate link, or are worried that some people would strip the affiliate part of the link off so they don't get credit.

In reality the best way to mask a link is not with something spammy looking like TinyURL but with your own site. You can make that long ugly link look like yoursite.com/product and that's the best way to do it. But Tiny is just easier so lots of affiliates use it.

 

[Slips715]

very informative, thank you for the insight

 

[Niche48]

Used to use these link shortening services. Terrible for click throughs in my experience. Like Linda said you can get your links to look better. I use an html redirect to cloak my affiliate links. Looks good and does not turn prospective clients off

 

[Web Dev]

Ok, since we are on that subject, and I don't think that 301 Redirect will do it...

But, Can someone tell me how can we Redirect or Transfer all the External (Affiliates) Links that we have on TinyURL to our website? Like you guys mentioned earlier "yoursite.com/product"

Do we need to recreate the Links All over Again? or Is it Possible..?


P.S.
BTW we don't have control over any Affiliate Links, so 301 Redirect is not going to Help...

 

[Sweetestmiracle]

Great question! I would like to know the answer to this one too. I have been out for quite a few months and would like to change this also, except I was using offtonet. What was I thinking back then

 

[rayjasper0211]

really, was it effective...???

 

[bigfish16]

I've been using Eclipse Link Cloaker on my wordpress blogs, it's a plug-in. It makes the link look much better at your site but when it comes up in the merchant site it's your full affiliate link.
It seems to work ok, anyone else using it?

 

[Iainj]

I've done a few split tests with parts of my list - sending one set a shortened url and the rest the full affiliate link.
To be honest I think most people who are affiliates, IM'er or general internet junkies understand what the butt ugly link is - yes some will edit out your ref ID. Where as the 'shortened URL' screams I'm hiding something from you...
(I grew up when internet security was switching your computer off and clicking links was just a bad plan)
I always seem to get a better response from the full url

I do sometimes us a shortened url for tracking (but then its not really shorter)
and for Twitter if the link is really big.