Is it necessary to cloak an affiliate link?

Macthetrix

Regular Member

Feb 21, 2013

378

395

• Jun 8, 2013

• #1

About 99% of my affiliate traffic comes from a mobile device like Android or Iphone. Im pretty new to this and the way I understand it is that people have sypware software on their Pc and everytime they click on my link it redirects them to the refferal link of the spyware so I end up losing the commision. Is this how it works? Is there spyware software like that on a mobile device and does this only work with websites or is it safe to promote the links with for example twitter, facebook or Instagram or can those be hijacked too? :ranger:

 

WayneInc

BANNED

Sep 20, 2012

1,193

1,137

• Jun 8, 2013

• #2

If you really want to protect your commission then cloak it.. you can use free plugin like pretty link...

 

Macthetrix

Regular Member

Feb 21, 2013

378

395

• Jun 8, 2013
• Thread Starter Thread Starter

• #3

WayneInc said:

If you really want to protect your commission then cloak it.. you can use free plugin like pretty link...

Click to expand...

Well amazon for example doesnt allow cloaking and I only use a naked link on my social networks to promote it so it should be safe or?

 

Q

qo-op

Newbie

Dec 13, 2012

25

8

• Jun 8, 2013

• #4

it may prevent spying from affiliate link

 

RankSnatcher

Regular Member

Jan 11, 2012

347

75

• Jun 8, 2013

• #5

Try to cloak your affiliate link. For Amazon you can use bit.ly URL shorten...

 

C

Cleann

BANNED

Jun 8, 2013

4

0

• Jun 8, 2013

• #6

No it's not necessary, but it does help.
I use them. Whenever I send out affiliate or referrer links I cloak them.

I found a pretty good website to quickly cloak them linkmasker . co
ive been using it for a while, it works pretty well. For WP you can use a plugin called pretty links.

 

netmoney1

Elite Member

Feb 21, 2012

3,429

11,101

• Jun 9, 2013

• #7

I always get an easy to remember/catchy domain - people are more likely to click on that rather than an affiliate link or a shortened link. GoDaddy has so many coupons daily for 99 cent domains, etc. I would suggest you go this route - I always see much better response.

Think about if you were promoting a product, lets just call it a "red widget" - what link would you click on:

A) www . theredwidgetofferyouarepromoting . com/aff/8q7yq3r2iufihwef7we7fewh7faewh7faewhi7faewhi7fiea7hw (affiliate link)

B) sh.ort/sdaf (shortened link)

C) www . bestredwidget . com (a domain you buy)

Just something to think about...

 

tompots

Elite Member

Dec 11, 2011

5,775

4,871

• Jun 21, 2013

• #8

diffidently cloak all your affiliate links!