Do CPA Networks Approve Link Cloaking ?

Hi

If i have a landing page offering some CPA offers.
Can i cloak my afiliate links by using, Tinyurl.com or something for example.

That way when the CPA network see's my traffic for that offer the referrer is Tinyurl.com and not my website/landing page.

Or do Tinyurl.com forward the headers from the original website?

Do CPA networks mind that if we cloak this way and in effect hide the referrer?

Thanks in advance

A server side redirect will send the original referrer. Why would you want to hide your landing page unless you were doing something to break the TOS? Its not like they are getting the keywords and promotion sources your using.

I don't know how that would possibly harm you in any way. Check with your CPA tos for complete information, or contact someone who works with you on CPA. I don't think it would pretty much be cloaking if used with a redirection service. It's more like protecting you rather than hurt you, it's against cookie stuffers (thieves). If I'm wrong then someone let me know, but I think I know what I'm saying. You should explain to them just to confirm if you are going to do it anyway, I see it more as protection rather than against them. It's simply redirection.

Sincerely Yours,
Markus

it will still show your landing page as the referer to your cpa network.

Along the lines of passing on the referrer even going through a redirect, does anyone know how to scrub the referrer at a redirection point? Maybe serverside (if you own the server and can make apache changes)? I like using redirects using a redirection script installed on my server so in the event that I was banned from a aff. program, I still have the traffic I can redirect to another aff. One thing I don't know is if it's possible to scrub the referrer before being sent out to the aff. offer. Anyone know?

Chris

SmallStorm said:

Along the lines of passing on the referrer even going through a redirect, does anyone know how to scrub the referrer at a redirection point? Maybe serverside (if you own the server and can make apache changes)? I like using redirects using a redirection script installed on my server so in the event that I was banned from a aff. program, I still have the traffic I can redirect to another aff. One thing I don't know is if it's possible to scrub the referrer before being sent out to the aff. offer. Anyone know?

Chris

Click to expand...

In the .NET framework...
The accessor declarations for UrlReferrer only contain a get accessor
UrlReferrer { set; }

However you might check server.transfer instead of response.redirect it may preserve the referrer??

SmallStorm said:

Along the lines of passing on the referrer even going through a redirect, does anyone know how to scrub the referrer at a redirection point? Maybe serverside (if you own the server and can make apache changes)? I like using redirects using a redirection script installed on my server so in the event that I was banned from a aff. program, I still have the traffic I can redirect to another aff. One thing I don't know is if it's possible to scrub the referrer before being sent out to the aff. offer. Anyone know?

Chris

Click to expand...

it's possible, I believe there is javascript that totally gets rid of it, but one way I been using is meta refresh redirect, and php redirect, (both still leaked original headers, so I'm yet to find an 100% efficient way)

Hi

Well the main idea is to fake my referrer.

I have two pages for my website on my server, one is a legitimate looking landing page and one is a page i dont want the CPA network to know about.

So basically i will be send lots of traffic to my hidden landing page (which my not be compliant with the networks TOS), when a user clicks on one of the banners to a CPA offer they are redirected to the offers affiliate page.

But i want to make it look like the user came from my legitimate looking landing page by faking the referrer or the alternative, just completely hiding the referrer by using a redirect service.

So i want to know if the Networks mind you hiding the referrer by using these redirect services.

I guess i could use some sort of server side redirect and strip the headers.

DrGonzo said:

Hi

Well the main idea is to fake my referrer.

I have two pages for my website on my server, one is a legitimate looking landing page and one is a page i dont want the CPA network to know about.

So basically i will be send lots of traffic to my hidden landing page (which my not be compliant with the networks TOS), when a user clicks on one of the banners to a CPA offer they are redirected to the offers affiliate page.

But i want to make it look like the user came from my legitimate looking landing page by faking the referrer or the alternative, just completely hiding the referrer by using a redirect service.

So i want to know if the Networks mind you hiding the referrer by using these redirect services.

I guess i could use some sort of server side redirect and strip the headers.

Click to expand...

why would they mind if they don't know? they only know what they see

Well they wil see that all my traffic is coming from a redirect service and wont be able to see what website its coming from, they monitor this stuff.

Im just not sure if they would look at this as suspicious.

every cpa network I always worked with told me to redirect my links, in case the offer goes in active, for split testing reasons, and the links just looks prettier..

I'm a little curious about this as well.

And for the record, tinyurl does NOT hide referrer info.

note that https nukes the referrer... if you want silent referrers its another option and it looks clean enough if an affiliate starts bitching

trophaeum said:

note that https nukes the referrer... if you want silent referrers its another option and it looks clean enough if an affiliate starts bitching

Click to expand...

will it mess with cookies/credits?

offer*cloak(dot)c0m - Nevarc's newest gift to us ; )

ximscreamingx said:

offer*cloak(dot)c0m - Nevarc's newest gift to us ; )

Click to expand...

yep. and using offer * cloak will not get you banned. I have been using the beta of offercloak since last october with no problems. I have occasionally had to explain why I was cloaking my traffic but now you dont have to do that. just say "I use offercl0ak."

yep. and using offer * cloak will not get you banned.

Click to expand...

Umm yea it will. I banned 5 publishers already this week and I know the creator of OfferCloak personally. Matter of fact, I just drank beer with him in Miami a couple of weeks ago at Ad-Tech.

Not that anyone may want it, but from an Affiliate Marketing stand point from the last 4 years and owning a CPA Network I can tell you that cloaking is a two-headed coin. If you have fucking moron Affiliate Managers and your doing dumb shit then yea you will get into the shithouse probably. If you're a "creative" cookie then the most that will come out of it is some questions. It's all about keeping the advertisers happy. If your paranoid then by all means cloak but if you're cloaking to hide some dumbass lazy shit, then all it takes is a Manager who is experienced to start researching you.

For the majority though, if you can bullshit then you can get yourself out of almost anything from the quality of people running CPA Networks these days. OfferCloak is just a cloaking service, why someone would pay for it? I have yet to figure that out. I'm not even a programmer but I figured out how to cloak my own links for free. Does the same things Offercloak does.

A word of caution - For the fellas who bought OfferCloaks old tool, it was and still is leaking referrer data. Hence why we banned some publishers this week.

Get a hold of Montydad in the forum here as he has been equipped with some creative thinking to better help the cloakers community

If I'm only using whitehat or greyhat tactics, why would I want to cloak my CPA links?

It might matter if I want to block competitors from seeing my page when I market through natural search engine, but what are the cons if I don't cloak when doing only paid advertising like Google Adwords?

Reffer blocking for white hat affiliates is important because CPA networks just love to promote thier own offers and give all that great data to other affiliates so they can make more money.

How do I know? I've been on both sides, I've been given other affiliates traffic sources, page designs and keywords, and I've had my stuff given to others.

It all comes down to paranoia and what you are doing. Nevarc's spot on, I've been robbed myself which is one of the biggest reasons why I went into owning a network. It's a lot easier to go at asshole networks who pull this shit when you have a legal entity and legal team helping and advising. Cloaking whitehat, nothing wrong with it. If your pushing good quality then a simple "give me a good reason why I should show you" and go above an AM's head. Thing is that almost all the networks are not very savvy in marketing. If they take from you, it's pretty damn easy to find out. On the other hand, People pull the dumbest and what they think to be the "slickest" shit everyday trying to use cloaking as a cover. The people pushing shit and being lazy is the exact same reason Networks have to see what's going on and in the end it comes down to a talk with the affiliate. If you cant straighten things out while your cloaking then you are either doing some shady shit, or you need to move to a network with whom you can trust.