Well just a little advice based off of a recent experience of mine. I've been working on getting my affiliate marketing site going and have hit on some extremely productive keywords and articles. I built a pretty extensive web of backlinks to my site as well as a pretty steady flow of daily and weekly traffic. I then decided to use TINYURL.com to cloak my affiliate links in an attempt to NOT get hijacked or what may be. Well I started noticing my stat counter was recording exiting traffic to my tinyurl links when I would click them myself I could see my affiliate link in teh title and all appeared to be going well. I then started doing some analysis of the Clickbank traffic counter and to my surprise the numbers from my exit links and the recorded number in click bank were off by a LARGE amount. All the while (about 2 weeks) my sales from Clickbank hit a record low...0. I didn't make the connection to TINURL for some reason and just assumed people were window shopping. Yesterday I decided to redo all my links with my affiliate links and trash tinyurl...the results were amazing. Literally overnight my sales and traffic results with clickbank jumped thorugh the roof with no real increase in my site traffic. Just as an FYI to all out there be mindful of using TINYURL or other such cloaking devices. if this is a common issue that i just didn't do my due diligence then just ignore But if you are using tinyurl please check to make sure your exit clicks are matching your clickbank clicks. That is all
Hi Open, That sux but glad it was straightened out. No one should ever use any cloaking for any reason. ~Newbie Shield~
Good to know you figured out how to solve the problem you were having. I think link-cloaking is over-rated anyway...
Well, that's certainly interesting. It seems like a lot of people use tinyurl. I wonder if they are aware that there is some type of tracking problem? Thanks for the heads up!
getagrip: I think link-cloaking is over-rated anyway... Keith is right. FYI - Link cloaking paranoia was successfully spread to create a market for sites such as TinyURL and paid cloaking software. Other "authority" sites became popular partially due to their rhetoric regarding the "wisdom" of cloaking links on your own site. There's no need to cloak links in any setting. If you are worried about a certain off-the-beaten-path forum or whatever, I would take it as a sign to not even visit that forum. Obviously it goes without saying that you wouldn't post your affiliate link in the said forum. Don't be afraid of getting your affiliate link hijacked or having to protect it. In regards to your own site, just keep up on security and harden down your server and there will be minimum risk. ~Newbie Shield~
Thanks Newbie. I will definitely NEVER EVER cloak again. Further proof that after years of marketing online I still learn best when I learn the hard way
Hello Open and all ... thank you for sharing with us your results of using tinyurl cloaking your links. i personally my self do not want to click to links such as tinyurl because i know this can sometimes divert to a dangerous sites ... Just would like to know your opinions on if using link cloaking but different methods such as below: www.YourWebSite.com/recommend/yourclickbankproduct and this link will open your affiliate website .... can this be use or is it same as what Open had encountered ... thanks .. [Post edited - Admin]
i use affiliate warrior to cloak my affiliate link in my website. for example affiliate link: XXXXX.payday.hop.clickbank.net when i cloaked it i get: affiliatesmania.com/payday.htm i never had any problem with my cloak link. many affiliate marketer advise to cloak our link not just to prevent someone from hijacked our link but to looks it more profesional too
Is affiliate warrior a software? I tried to google this software, but couldn't find the main website.
cherie27: Is affiliate warrior a software? I tried to google this software, but couldn't find the main website ya it's a software. it really easy to use
Everyone I know - who are leaders in the field of affiliate marketing - absolutely DO hide their hoplinks. It is a sign of a rank amateur when it is not done...usually with a php redirect.
I was using tighturl.com to cloak my links, and the same thing happened. I decided to investigate and found that tighturl has a strict policy against using their service to cloak affiliate links. I'm not sure why; maybe they think it's dishonest or something. They disabled my links, so I stopped using them. I rarely cloak my links, but if you do choose to cloak links, don't use tighturl.
why we should cloak links. whom we are protecting ourselves from. what the hijackers actually do. Could anyone answer.
