Do you mask/hide your affiliate links?

[DomainMagnate]

So do you hide your affiliate links with js, redirect them with tinyurl, or your own scripts like this, mask them somehow or just present them as they are?

 

[praveen61]

no. i dont hide them using any scripts or redirects.

plain old affiliate link which the visitors can see.

 

[StephenR]

I use a program by Mike Filsaime (no affiliate URL) for this. I can't tell you how much of a difference it can make for you.

What would your e-mail list rather click on when you send them an e-mail

http://www.greatestseobookintheworld.com/mys/affID=8975063?=0

or

http://www.yourdomain.com/recommends/seobook

Don't use the generic affiliate URL. It has been statistically proven that many people will cut and paste the root URL before clicking on these links, circumventing your unique link and cookie.

 

[lingstar]

Good morning,

I almost always in both ebooks and resources sites use a cloaked affiliate link. I've found them to be more user-friendly.

Best wishes,

 

[JAmieF]

Don't use the generic affiliate URL. It has been statistically proven that many people will cut and paste the root URL before clicking on these links, circumventing your unique link and cookie.

Hi Stephen

How have you been? Do you have a link to the stats or article about how people will cut and paste the root URL? I am interested in reading it.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Michael,

Thanks for doing a GREAT poll! Cracked me up cuz it sounds like something I would write, especially #4. Glad no one voted for #4 yet!

I don't personally do much affiliate marketing myself, but I am testing out the white hat version of GoTryThis for research purposes mainly.

Here's my affiliate link, just so you can see how it looks and how it works.

http://www.5staraffiliateprograms.com/linkcloaking
instead of https://members.gotrythis.com/aff.php?aff=1814

I REALLY like the fact that you can do split testing and it has AWESOME graphs so you can see which links are getting clicked over time.

I'm using it for non-affiliate ad tracking too. I'm doing a little CraigsList marketing so I just use GotryThis to add unique links so I can see which cities and what time of day pulls the most clicks.

Just check out the video to see how it works. I think it's amazing software.

(FYI not trying to sell anyone and I could care less if you use my link. It's only 47 so not worth my time to promote I just think it's a cool tool.)

For basic link cloaking you can just use htaccess for free.

 

[DomainMagnate]

Michael,

Thanks for doing a GREAT poll! Cracked me up cuz it sounds like something I would write, especially #4. Glad no one voted for #4 yet!

thanks I hoped you'd love that

too bady the option max length is too short since I had a few more nasty things to enter in the #4 option

Well I myself tried a few things:

1. masking aff urls with php redirects, like this one:
http://www.affiliatelookup.com/i.php?l=incentaclick
(guess where it goes )

2. .htaccess redirects, for example you can make yourdomain.com/incentaclick do the same as above

3. plain aff urls heh

Well so far it's too early to report, since I've just started testing it, but I will def report back the results

 

[JustinHarrison]

I kill two birds with one stone?.

I cloak my affiliate links by creating a click tracker for each affiliate link, this way not only do I protect my affiliate commissions, but I also have a way to track the effectiveness of my links?

 

[DomainMagnate]

sounds like the ultimate solution Justin
how do you usually cloak, got an example of how do they look like?

thanks

 

[JustinHarrison]

I have a number of different click trackers the most common one I use (which is really basic) is called CT track and runs off a simple MySQL database and PHP.

So let?s say my affiliate link is:
http://techdirect.noadware.hop.clickbank.net

Once I put this link into my click tracker, the click tracker generates its own redirect / tracking URL which will look like:

http://www.theharrisonventure.com/bonus/ct.php?c=5starno

Then I generally make the link look a little better by adding some anchor text (HINT ? with a strong call to action) such as?

FREE SPYWARE SCAN >>> SCAN YOUR PC NOW!

So basically I heave ?cloaked? my affiliate link and added tracking to this specific link , everywhere I place a new link I create a new instance of this link so that I can measure the effectiveness of the medium, pitch and audience.

Hope that info was of use to you guys?