Should you use OffTo.net to cloak your affiliate links?

[djbaxter]

Why you NEED to use OffTo.net to cloak your affiliate links
by Jonathan Leger
April 15, 2009

The other day I made a couple of minor changes to my free affiliate link cloaking service (OffTo.net)...

In case it's not clear yet, this benefits YOU because when you cloak your links using OffTo, your cloaked links will often end up ranking for the keywords on the cloaked page (especially if you choose a link name that has your keywords in it). That means EXTRA traffic from the search engines, for free!

In order to benefit from this extra traffic, you want to be sure the "Hide links to affiliate program on landing page" box is checked when you create the cloaked link, since that's what causes the page to get cached and ranked in the engines.

...more

 

[whiskymac]

Do you recommend cloaking your link ? I was not sure what to do about this. Be grateful for your thoughts on this

 

[djbaxter]

I'm still learning about some of this stuff. I was hoping for input myself from the wiser and more experienced.

 

[whiskymac]

lol , I will have a look around and hear others thoughts if I find anything interesting out I will put it up. Thx for taking the time.
whiskymac

 

[Linda Buquet]

My opinion is don't use any 3rd party redirect service at all, for a couple reasons.

1) TinyURL got so overused and was so often used for spam that people don't trust it or automatically think it's going to be a junky link. All these other redirect services get lumped into the same category and I think people avoid them.

2) IMPORTANT - CONVERSIONS - use HTaccess on your own server. If you were interested in green widgets and went to someone's site to read about green widgets and wanted to BUY green widgets - which link would you be more incline to click on - or more comfortable clicking on?

offto.net/akljr4r8p
OR
widgetsite.com/GreenWidgets

3) Rips offs and control - An unscrupulous programmer could possibly change your link to their link. OR the site could be down so none of your links worked and you may not know it and could lose sales. If the links were on YOUR server - you control it and would know if it's down and have the power to contact your host and get it back up.

Now I do use link redir svcs sometimes, for instance to post a quick link to Twitter. But those aren't money links, they are just info links. I personally use and like cli.gs because it has click tracking.

 

[djbaxter]

All good points, Linda. I kniow a lot of people distrust tinyurl because thay can't see in advance where the link is goind so there's no where of telling if it's a drive-by malware site.

Are there any advnatages to using affiliate link cloaking with or without a third party service, though?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Yes there are advantages to link cloaking via your own domain.

1) Conversions - an affiliate network link might look like
jdwaqyrtm.com/?AID125486PID3859 Or trackinglink.com/?refid18473.

Your own site/product name like: widgetsite.com/GreenWidgets looks much more user friendly.

2) Ease of changing out merchants. Let's say you have an affiliate link to a green widget merchant on your site, your blog, some forum sigs and well you can't even remember all places you posted that link. The merchant goes under, or stops offering an affiliate program or for whatever reason you need to switch merchants. Instead of running around switching out all those links, you just go to HTaccess - swap out that one link and it automatically changes out all the links to the new merchant.

So those are 2 good reasons to cloak links.

 

[djbaxter]

Thanks, Linda.

 

[Sweetestmiracle]

Thank you so much for this post. I am currently using offtonet and not really liking it. I am now in the process of switching everything over to the site you suggested Linda

 

[Linda Buquet]

I am now in the process of switching everything over to the site you suggested Linda

FYI I didn't suggest a site I suggested using HTaccess on your own site. Here's how you do it.

http://www.clickconsultants.com/using-htaccess-to-hide-affiliate-links

Using .htaccess file for affiliate link redirects

 

[Sweetestmiracle]

Hi Linda thanks for the added links and tips. My error as not being more clear about cloaking. I was talking about cli.gs that you had mentioned above. But I did try out the links you provided with one of my sites Never seems to be enough time in the day when you work a full time day job and then try to build a business online. Someday...