Cloaking your affiliate link basically means hiding the raw affiliate code you get from the affiliate network and instead displaying a more attractive link like http://www.richardpargeter.com/recommends/aproduct.php

Why would you want to do this?

For a couple of reasons:-

1. It looks better.

A normal affiliate link can look something like this:-

http://34035cphs8mcd498ykrm4v3x7t.hop.clickbank.net/

…urggh! pretty ugly don’t you think

A cloaked affiliate link looks like this:-

http://www.richardpargeter.com/recommends/product … much easier on the eye!

2. Unscrupulous people can’t steal your commissions (as easily)

Believe it or not there are people hiding in the shadows of the great world wide web that are prepared to steal your commissions.

How?

Well if you have a naked affiliate link without cloaking it’s fairly easy for those in the know to realise it is an affiliate link. They can then go and sign up with the merchant themselves get their own affiliate link and purchase the product through their own link, in effect giving themselves a discount and robbing you of your commission for directing them to the merchant in the first place.

Don’t get too hung up on this but just be aware that it does happen.

3. A naked affiliate link looks dodgy!

Some people will see the source of the link and think that the code looks untrustworthy and may even be put off from clicking on the link. If you’ve got a nice looking link like the example above your visitors are more likely to click the link not knowing that it is in fact an affiliate link.

Affiliate Link Cloaking

The process of hiding your affiliate link really is very simple and involves just three steps.

Step 1. Copy your affiliate code. If you haven’t got your affiliate code I tell you how to do this in my previous post on how to add your affiliate codes to your website

Step 2. Create the Redirect Script

Open up a text editor like Notepad and type the following code:-

<?php header(Location:'YOUR-AFFILIATE-LINK-GOES-HERE');?>

Replace the YOUR-AFFILIATE-LINK-GOES-HERE with the actual code you got from the merchant or affiliate network.

Save this file something like specialoffer.php and save it in a new folder called ‘recommends’

Remember to save as .PHP otherwise it won’t work.

Step 3. Upload to your server

The final step is to upload the ‘recommends’ folder with the specialoffer.php file (or whatever you’ve decide to call it) inside, to the root directory of your domain server using an FTP program like Filezilla (See my resources page)

The file structure should look like http://www.YOURDOMAIN.com/recommends/specialoffer.php

From now on when you are promoting your affiliate product you should use this new CLOAKED affiliate url.

And what happens is when someone clicks on http://www.YOURDOMAIN.com/recommends/specialoffer.php they will be redirected to your affiliate offer without your affiliate code being visible.

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