Cloaking affiliate links

Hi,
I am trying my hand at some affiliate marketing, mainly click bank and amazon at this initial stage. My question is about cloaking your affiliate link.

I have read a lot of people say your link should be cloaked on here. I don't really understand this despite searching and reading these forums for hours (I may be daft).

Does shortening a link count as cloaking? (eg cutty url shortener)

Are there free tools to make a link come up as a typed word, phrase or picture? Just to make it look nicer.

Are there any repercussions of doing this?

Thanks in advance, if anyone can point me to a thread that explains these questions please do!

You can use clocking plugins for that https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-cloak-affiliate-links-on-your-wordpress-site/

Mr Positive said:

You can use clocking plugins for that https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-cloak-affiliate-links-on-your-wordpress-site/

Click to expand...

thank you

I am more looking at running the links/ads not on a site I own......kinda spamming i guess

It depends on what you mean by cloaking.

Cloaking can be just a way to change your link into another so it can be more readable, and when you open the modified link it simply redirects you to the original link. This is what link shorteners do and there is nothing fancy about it.

But, if you are talking about cloaking links concerning ads campaigns (like facebook ads or google ads) then its a bit more complicated.

This kind of cloaker will not only shorten your link but it will try to prevent the platform from blocking your account by showing a safe page (usually configured by you) to their robots, so that they dont detect that you may be violating their campaign's rules.

You would use that on some adult niche product on facebook ads, for example... although you are violating their rules they wont be able to detect it instantly.

The "real" cloaking technique is basically that... show a page to the robots and show a different page to real users both from the same URL.

Cloaking can be used in some extent to try to trick search engines too.

Matheus Moreira said:

It depends on what you mean by cloaking.

Cloaking can be just a way to change your link into another so it can be more readable, and when you open the modified link it simply redirects you to the original link. This is what link shorteners do and there is nothing fancy about it.

But, if you are talking about cloaking links concerning ads campaigns (like facebook ads or google ads) then its a bit more complicated.

This kind of cloaker will not only shorten your link but it will try to prevent the platform from blocking your account by showing a safe page (usually configured by you) to their robots, so that they dont detect that you may be violating their campaign's rules.

You would use that on some adult niche product on facebook ads, for example... although you are violating their rules they wont be able to detect it instantly.

The "real" cloaking technique is basically that... show a page to the robots and show a different page to real users both from the same URL.

Cloaking can be used in some extent to try to trick search engines too.

Click to expand...

Thanks Matheus

You explained that very clearly.
I am wondering if there is a link shortener that can actually change a link into say a word. For example it I wrote a comment on a forum I would prefer people to click on a word, it just looks more appealing than a link. So intead of http://www.clickbankblahblahtoasterblah it would just say toaster.

inclaminated said:

Thanks Matheus

You explained that very clearly.
I am wondering if there is a link shortener that can actually change a link into say a word. For example it I wrote a comment on a forum I would prefer people to click on a word, it just looks more appealing than a link. So intead of www.clickbankblahblahtoasterblah it would just say toaster.

Click to expand...

There is no way because the link itself is a URL like https://website.com.

In your forum example you would have to put the link in a word like this: toaster.

To do this you use the code:

(url=URL)DESIRED_WORD(/url)

Replace () with [].

Thank you very much, this is what I needed to know! I will work out how to do this next, awesome.

I will just chime in. Most affiliate networks and especially Amazon, will rip your head off for link cloaking.

Use cookie stuffing

You can't use a url shortener for the cloaking you're describing. You need a tool like Just Cloak It or some other cloakers on the forum. I use Just Cloak It and it's always worked well.

You need to setup a safe site so that the ad networks do not ban you. The way a cloaker works is that ad networks see your safe site and users see your money site/page. This is a pretty advanced tactic because you need to know how to setup the cloaker and also how to setup the PHP code. Most cloaking services will help you if you sign up for their service.

I've tried several other cloakers aside from Just cloak It. The cheaper ones tend to be less secure and more likely to get your ad account of affiliate account banned.

You should go into the section of BHW for cloaking and check the threads. But just remember that using a short url is not going to help and will get your ad account banned. Also, no Wordpress plugin is going to get the job done. You need to use a cloaker that has IP verification and device verification. Just keep researching and you'll figure it all out.

What about Afftool ?

Hey, does anyone know if it's possible to cloak an app? For example, it could look like a t-shirt store on the front but is actually, let's say, an adult store.