It Is Best To Cloak Your Affiliate Links

By Bryan Thorby

Affiliate Marketers can earn a few bucks to thousands of dollars with affiliate programs. Read the amazing true story of how one woman, with no previous business experience, earns 400,000+ per year ... selling other people's stuff online!

superaffiliatehandbook

The opportunity to earn in affiliate marketing can only be limited by the affiliate's determination, creativity and strategy. It is a brilliant way to earn online, and you do not have to produce your own product or service to make a buck. By advertising your merchant's products passionately, you get more in return. Profits in affiliate marketing usually start small but can get larger as the campaign starts to build up steam.

Every time an affiliate joins and decides to pre-sell an affiliate product, there is an affiliate link. The number of people the affiliate is able to refer to the affiliate merchant's sales page is gauged by how many people click on the affiliate link.

Pre-selling is very much different from actual selling. You don't concern yourself with the usual demands of actually distributing a product for profit. All you have to do is to market the affiliate merchant's products and drive people to affiliate merchant's sales page. Thereafter, the affiliate merchant's system takes care of the rest, from accepting and processing payments, to delivering the goods, to customer support.

Now comes the problem, and it's known as link theft.

By displaying the affiliate links as they are, the pertinent details of the affiliate's accounts are revealed, most notably the affiliate ID number.

This allows some unscrupulous people to take advantage by replacing your ID with their own. This is particularly the case with Clickbank links. You put in the effort to promote a product and the potential customer uses their own ID to make the purchase and receive the commission.

Of course there are quite a number of affiliate programs that do not allow affiliates to order through their own links.

Other people have an aversion to what is an obvious affiliate link because they don't like the idea of somebody earning a commission from their purchase which is a fairly crazy attitude because they are still paying the same price. These people go direct to the merchants website by wiping your affiliate link before they visit the website which means that the affiliate merchants cookie won't give you credit.

But does this mean that you're completely powerless against these activities?

Not necessarily. You could always try link cloaking.

You need to take measures to avoid the possibility of missing out on a commission because it's your online income at stake.

There are many ways in which an affiliate link can be cloaked.

Link cloaking is made possible through the use of a javascript that conceals your affiliate links from plain view.

You can use a web based service.

You can purchase a software program to create redirection pages.

You can create your own redirect pages by using a simple redirection script on your website.

You can also use .htaccess files to redirect short, neat links to clumsy, long affiliate links. An .htaccess file is a plain ASCII text file you place in the root directory at your website.

Keep in mind that with each method there are pros and cons. Some work better than others. But some people are really determined so don't worry to much about those idiots.

If you want to protect your affiliate earnings, do take advantage of link cloaking today. It is an investment in time and money that is worth making for the serious affiliate marketer.

Set up your own website and use cloaked links wherever possible.

To learn more about cloaking affiliate links do a web search.

To get your own redirector cloaking device go to The ReDirector

FINAL THOUGHT
In Affiliate Marketing if at first you don't succeed, perservere, be proactive, analyse what has worked and what hasn't. Believe in yourself and in your ability to be successful.

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