Should hide affiliate links?

system0102

system0102

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Hi everyone,

I have been hanging out on the BHW for several months and learnt a lot about quality content, backlink strategies, SEO tools and methods, etc. Big respect to everyone on this forum! :You_Rock_

At the moment I already have a website up with some decent unique content which I want to use with Amazon affiliate program. I have a backlink strategy I want to test and all tools that I need. But the only doubt that I have here is what to do with the amazon affiliate links? There are very mixed opinions in threads on this forum. Will it hurt my ranking if I just leave affiliate links naked? :scratchch
 
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amazon you can leave naked because 95% of people wont know it's an affiliate link..

but links that look like affiliate links: mysite.com/tracking/93299/loan?=track23sub=2332 etc you should really do a PHP redirect that will clean it up so afterwards it looks like this: mysite.com/go/loan
 
prospect7 said:
amazon you can leave naked because 95% of people wont know it's an affiliate link..

but links that look like affiliate links: mysite.com/tracking/93299/loan?=track23sub=2332 etc you should really do a PHP redirect that will clean it up so afterwards it looks like this: mysite.com/go/loan
Click to expand...

This is interesting to me also. Does Google dislike affiliate links in general and that's why we should hide them or is keeping them short enough?
 
do general outbound links like out/123 which redirects to affiliate link and make them nofollow
 
I've run some experiments but at the end the results are that it doesn't really make any difference if you leave the affiliate links "as is"
 
Personally I don't cloak Amazon affiliate links. As prospect7 pointed, many visitor won't notice that they are affiliate links. Also you can use shorten version of Amazon affiliate links.

But for others, I use cloaking.
 
The Associates Program Operating Agreement that governs your participation in the Associates Program requires that links to an Amazon Site must not be confusing or misleading, and must be clear that they link to an Amazon Site. For more information, please review the Participation Requirements and Linking Requirements found here:

http://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/help/operating/participation

https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/help/operating/linking
Click to expand...

It's against amazon's new affiliate terms to cloack your links. However, I'd highly encourage it from the stand point of improving click through. Perhaps if you do something like http://www.mydomain.com/amazon/product-name it would be okay? Not 100% haven't read their full terms. Keep in mind, if you're in the US you need to comply with the new FTC rules about proper disclosure.
 
parasitus84 said:
This is interesting to me also. Does Google dislike affiliate links in general and that's why we should hide them or is keeping them short enough?
Click to expand...

In my experiences Google doesn't care if you have affiliate links on your site as long as your content is good and you have some HQ outgoing links to high authority sites.

The main reason you clean up your links is:

A) certain users purposely won't click your link if they know you could make money from selling them something. This is only a problem in certain niches.

B) aesthetics / trust

UNCLOAKED::: http://mysite.com/loans/tracking.ph...niesoffu?sub-id=campaign1?sub-id2=paydayloans

or

CLOAKED::: http://mysite.com/go/loans --- or --- http://mysite.com/go/loans.php

The cloaked version not only looks cleaner it also has a better trust value for the users clicking your links.

If you guys want I can make a detailed tutorial on how to do a PHP redirect to cloak your links properly. For now here's the code and basic instructions:

Code: 
<?php

   header( 'Location:[COLOR=#ff0000] http://YOURSITE.com/affiliatecode?=tracking2882?subid=campaign1blahblah[/COLOR]' ) ;

?>

Just basically save that code in a text file, rename the file from mylink.txt to mylink.php, upload it to your server then use the php file as your link. (mysite.com/mylink.php) or you can put it in a folder on your server and it looks like this (mysite.com/go/mylink)
 
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the_demon said:
It's against amazon's new affiliate terms to cloack your links. However, I'd highly encourage it from the stand point of improving click through. Perhaps if you do something like www.mydomain.com/amazon/product-name it would be okay? Not 100% haven't read their full terms. Keep in mind, if you're in the US you need to comply with the new FTC rules about proper disclosure.
Click to expand...

So how is it breaking their TOS if you use cloacked links but also use anchor text like this "buy this product from amazon"?
 
If it's a wordpress site cloak your links with pretty link pro, yes it will make a difference with your ranks, and how many sales you get.
 
If you are working with Amazon you should cloak the links.
 
It's written few posts above ( and it's true) that it's against their rules to cloack the links.

If you used wordpress as your platform, it's very simple to stay fine. Use PRETTY LINKS plug-in. I am using them for more than 1 year, cashed a lot from them and never had any issues.


danailo said:
If you are working with Amazon you should cloak the links.
Click to expand...
 
I'm confused about statements talking about the aesthetic side of affiliate links for potential consumers and a need to shorten and make them more appealing. So if I just put a link under anchor text like <a href="affiliate_link">anchor_text</a>, how potential customers would know how my links look like? Maybe I'm missing something here?
 
I am wondering the same thing. I see it is against the TOS now, but I was thinking about prettylinking it :S
 
I mean, if my site has 10 unique and well written articles and I decide to put couple of affiliate links to amazon products with anchor texts in one of those articles, what are chances the site will get penalized by big G?
 
My advice would be to leave naked url for Amazon links.

Anything else that would distort the links with appended requests (affiliate links, UTM parameters) in which you believe could hurt either conversion or reputation, do a simple 301 redirect.
not
TO answer the penalty question: Google will not be doing there job if they are penalizing you. You can do a nofollow as someone suggested earlier and if you are truly frightened then you may simply not use an anchor at all (javascript/button instead).
<input type="button" value="Link to amazon product" style="border:0px solid #fff; color:blue;background:transparent;" onclick="window.open('http://www.example.com','_blank','resizable=yes')">
Click to expand...


The above will look like a normal link.

Anyway, my advice is to stop worrying about it. It's really a non-issue other than concern that your readers might be wary of affiliate links.
 
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