Comments on: Cloak your affiliate link to make more money

By: CajenTutorials

CajenTutorials — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 01:23:47 +0000

its just beyonf me why other people wont click on a link if they know its an affiliate link. in any case, this is really a nice tip. ive been thinking of doing this for sometime now. and i think ill start now. thanks so much!

By: Shafiq

Shafiq — Sat, 10 May 2008 17:40:28 +0000

This is infact a very good idea, I will implement it on my blog soon.

By: Nadeesha Cabral

Nadeesha Cabral — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:55:01 +0000

Well, I believe most of us end up in the latter category rather than the former. After all, since you’re cloaking an affiliate link, why not take another 5 seconds and cloak them all?

By: Nadeesha Cabral

Nadeesha Cabral — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:52:06 +0000

I agree! It might even be more than 90%.. Amazing how people would take the extra trouble to prevent others from making some money even if they’re not losing anything.

By: Colleen

Colleen — Tue, 06 May 2008 03:32:34 +0000

Tony, visitors fail to click affiliate links because it makes it obvious the fact that the page providers are getting paid to link and it diminishes their credibility. A smart visitor can tell a cloaked link just as easily and unless you frame it tinyurl reveals the real link once you get there. If you are talking about brandxcameras.com and your url is tinyurl.com or http://mydomain.com/something.php I KNOW it’s a cloaked link.

By: Colleen

Colleen — Tue, 06 May 2008 03:24:42 +0000

Some bloggers affiliate link to whatever pays best and some affiliate link to stuff they really like. Here’s the acid test… read the prose around the link. If it’s drivel hyperbole, the blogger probably never even used the product. If they have genuine enthusiasm and a real personal story that seems to go with the rest of the blog, then they are probably truthfully recommending it. If they have affiliate or cloaked affiliate links mixed in with just straight non monetized links, it’s tells me “Here is stuff I really like,if I can make a buck or two I will but if I can’t I’ll still tell my readers about it.” If EVERY single link is monetized (tinyurl or jump.php is a dead giveaway as well) I tend to think the blogger is more about pushing affiliate links and less about how good the product is.

By: Tony - Nigerian Entrepreneur

Tony - Nigerian Entrepreneur — Sat, 03 May 2008 11:12:05 +0000

I quite agree with you. It is a good idea to cloak the affliate link. Visitors often get repulsed when they discover that a link is actually an affiliate link. I don’t know why, but I can testify that if I know that a link is an affiliate link, 90% I will not click on it. Thanks for sharing the tips. Cheers.

By: Nadeesha Cabral

Nadeesha Cabral — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:30:39 +0000

Jenny, I’m glad that you found this useful. Happy to be of assistance. I also stand on your view-point. Though I wouldn’t exactly call it cheating if someone doesn’t follow my affiliate link, I would however claim that it’s unethical.

Cheers!

By: Jenny

Jenny — Fri, 02 May 2008 10:13:41 +0000

Thanks for this. I’ve often wondered whether to cloak links before. It wasn’t for ethical reasons. One could argue that the visitor who gets rid of your referral link was the one “cheating”. But I’m mainly interested in how one could do this with a blog. ie linking to a php page.

By: Nadeesha Cabral

Nadeesha Cabral — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:11:21 +0000

I haven’t tried it, but if you’re intersted, this would help:
http://w-shadow.com/blog/2007/07/28/link-cloaking-plugin-for-wordpress/