Hiding Affiliate Link URL's?

[ian-d]

I've seen on some affiliate sites they are able to hide the affiliate link. Does anyone know how this is done?

[stu foster]

Careful now mate.

This is technically known as cloaking although i personally see no harm in hiding your affiliate links to make them look more user friendly.

It's when you show one link and redirect somewhere else completely that is very naughty.

Stu

[Matthew Wood]

Depends how you do it, our techies mask the affiliate link using php.

This stops Google and other search engines from seeing a page full of affiliate links when they crawl - The SEO value depends how sceptical you are - but I think its good practice.

Users can also be fickle, if they don't see the expected URL when they hover over the hyperlink they could bolt - granted a very small minority but if your'e tight with conversions every little helps.

This was discussed at length here

http://www.affiliates4u.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=40923

[Keith]

I did a short article about cloaking affiliate links on my blog a while back Redirecting or Cloaking Affiliate Links I'm not saying its perfect or comprehensive but it will give you an idea of some the different methods of redirection

[Stellar]

Are you sure that is considered as cloaking Stu?

Loads of sites do it and I'm sure that I have even seen Matt Cutts recommending it as a way of stopping an advertiser benefiting from the inbound link for rankings.

It is also a good way of tracking where your visitors are going.. ie, you can send your visitors to a redirect script that puts some details into a datbase including the site that you are sending gthe visitor too.. that way you can compare clicks to merchant sites vs what the networks say.

[Stellar]

Are you sure that is considered as cloaking Stu?

Loads of sites do it and I'm sure that I have even seen Matt Cutts recommending it as a way of stopping an advertiser benefiting from the inbound link for rankings.

It is also a good way of tracking where your visitors are going.. ie, you can send your visitors to a redirect script that puts some details into a datbase including the site that you are sending gthe visitor too.. that way you can compare clicks to merchant sites vs what the networks say.

[John Jupp]

Do a quick search on this forum. There are php and javascript versions posted on this site.

[Donk]

If you have php available on your server here is piece of code that does the job:

PHP Code:

<?php
$link=array(
1=>"http://network.com?affid=65675&merch=87897&pid=7hjkhjk",
2=>"http://network.com?affid=65675&merch=87897&pid=76786",
3=>"http://network.com?affid=65675&merch=87897&pid=7uyiu86",
4=>"http://network.com?affid=65675&merch=87897&pid=7yfgfh6"
);
$url=$link[$_GET['product']];
header("Location: ".$url);
?>

Save the script as link.php and change your links to something like link.php?product=1

The javascript alternatives do not work in Firefox or IE7.

[Stellar]

Are you sure that is considered as cloaking Stu?

Loads of sites do it and I'm sure that I have even seen Matt Cutts recommending it as a way of stopping an advertiser benefiting from the inbound link for rankings.

It is also a good way of tracking where your visitors are going.. ie, you can send your visitors to a redirect script that puts some details into a datbase including the site that you are sending gthe visitor too.. that way you can compare clicks to merchant sites vs what the networks say.

[Stellar]

sorry for the triple posts! bloody PC's!

[stu foster]

i think technically yes but with so much aff fraud going on, i tend to agree with the rest of you.

As i said before, i think it's the context in which it's used that really matters.

I'd be interested in seeing the Matt Cutts post. will check the blog.

stu