| IMD |
| Page: Definition Link Cloaking |
Link Cloaking:
Link Cloaking means disguising a link so that it doesn’t display the actual URL to which the visitor is sent when he clicks on the link. It is most often applied with affiliate links which have several severe disadvantages that can cost an affiliate money.
For example a link like
http://www.espired.com/cgi-bin/lyre.cgi/action/JVM/PerClick/thru?pack_id=129320&aff_id=3804
Is long, ugly and experience has shown that people don't like to click on it
Might break when sent in an Email and won’t work anymore. To visit your affiliate page people would have to copy your link and paste it in the address bar of their browser. Only a minor percentage are willing to do that
An amazingly large number of people seems to be unable to stand the idea that another person (the affiliate) would earn money and therefore would rather cut of the affiliate code part of the link by directly typing the core URL into their browser (in above example www.espired.com ) than click on the link
Even worse, some would 1st sign up themselves as affiliates of the product and then replace your affiliate-ID by their own ID thus collecting the commission which would be rightfully yours (some owners of affiliate programs don’t allow this, though)
The remedy is
to cloak the link, either by free web
services like tinyurl
or graburl
. There you can enter your affiliate link and receive an
replacement-URL like
http://tinyurl(graburl).com/xyz. You
can then promote this link in emails or on your
website
. When somebody clicks on it he is redirected
via tinyurl or graburl to your actual affiliate
pag
Another and better method of cloaking a link is by use of a
script that converts any affiliate link inta link like
http://www.yourdomain.com/Recommends/product_abc
. Like tinyurl- or graburl-links this link has the advantage
that it cannot be “hijacked
” but as an additional bonus it tells a story and by actual
test the click
rates
of “Recommend”-links are 3 – 4x these of the somewhat
cryptic and nonsensical
tinyurl/graburl-links.
[Link comes from Old Danish lænkia = chain;
Cloak comes from Latin clocca = a travelers’ (bell shaped) cape which covered and concealed the body, clocca originally = bell]
|
Recommended
Resources:
|
