Affiliate Link Cloaking - Is It Feasible?

Before you go ahead with exploring whether affiliate link cloaking is feasible or not, you should first look at the wide array of benefits that it offers to you. Once you understand the advantages of using link cloaking software, you can decide how much you should invest in it and whether such investments are feasible for you.

It Makes Your Link More “Clickable”

Because of the online threats like viruses, spyware, adware, malware, Trojans, and other such things, the Internet users these days are very careful when it comes to clicking on a link. They try to make sure that clicking on a link is safe and will not invite those malicious programs to their computers. Now, let’s have a look at an affiliate link. It usually looks like this – www.websitename.com/affiliate_page.asp?affliate_id=product_affiliate_id235. As you can see, it looks ugly, complex, and quite uninviting. You can make these links “clickable” by cloaking the same. A cloaked link will look like this - www.websitename.com/productname. The difference is quite evident.

Cloaking Protects Your Links From Getting Blocked

Because of the special characters that these links use, these links most of the times are directly blocked by the anti-spyware programs that are installed on the user’s computer. This means when the user click on such links, they get a message on their computer screen that “visiting this web page may harm your computer”. Obviously, you are not going to visit that page after getting such a message. Cloaking, on the other hand, hides those special characters and thus protects the links from getting blocked. The links don’t only look nice to the visitors but also to the spiders of the anti-spyware programs.

Cloaking Closes All Possible Doors For Bypassers And Hijackers

A bypasser is the person who after identifying the link as an affiliate link does not click on the same. Instead, they directly visit the merchant’s website and make the purchase. Hijackers leave a more traumatic experience for you, as they use their own affiliate ID instead of yours to make the purchase. In case of bypassing, you simply lose your commission, but in case of hijacking, the commission you deserve is transferred to someone else’s account. Somebody else gets reward for the hard work you put in to promote that product. Link cloaking saves your affiliate links from getting bypassed or hijacked.

Considering the severity of the threats that the uncloaked links are vulnerable to, you definitely do not want to take any chance. Your affiliate success very much depends upon how effectively you cloak your links. That is the reason why it always pays to go for a reputed paid cloaker software program.