Viewing affiliate links in other sites

[ArizonaJay]

I'm looking at sites that are potential competitors in my niche. I see many instances where they have linked another site in the text of their blog say, www.merchantsite.com. In some cases, if I hover the mouse over this link, I can see an affiliate code string in the bottom left hand corner of the screen on one of the bottom toolbars. In other cases, it just looks like a a free direct (a hyperlink I think it's called?).

How can see if these are publishers that are sending people to www.merchantsite.com as a affiiate (versus just out of the goodness of their hearts)? And is there a way to see what network (I know in some cases I've been able to see clickbank and doubleclick - now known as GANS).

 

[Linda Buquet]

There are some tracking solutions that provide a direct link with no visible tracking string in the URL. I'm not sure how you'd tell these are affiliate links.

Linkshare I believe still uses linksynergy.com for their tracking urls. CJ is hard because it uses a bunch of different gibberish domains. So if you see something like jbdrwky.com and a PID # then that's probably a CJ link.

 

[ArizonaJay]

"There are some tracking solutions that provide a direct link with no visible tracking string in the URL. I'm not sure how you'd tell these are affiliate links."

Is this what is referred to as "Link Cloaking" and is generally recommended for affiliates?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Well no link tracking is something done on the affiliate's end to hide the long affiliate URLs. Usually the link looks something like mysite.com/productname or mysite.com/recommends/productname. So the link cloaking or redirect is using the affiliate's domain.

What I was referring to is some affiilate tracking solutions provide affiliate links that are direct links and just look like merchantsite.com with no tracking stuff after it.