Quickly skim through this article and at least acquaint yourself with the concept of link cloaking. You will discover the benefits and pitfalls of two free methods and the benefits of a commercial product that I highly recommend - Jack Keifer’s Amazing Cloaker.

Amazing Cloaker is one of several commercial affiliate link cloakers, or URL cloakers, on the market. I use the Amazing Cloaker and have tried the free methods of link cloaking. Jack’s product is simple to use and very powerful. He has just recently updated it to version 4 and included a “save” feature I had requested a little while ago. The new “save” button will save a whole heap of time trying to remember the settings for every cloaked link. This comes in very handy as every one of your links can now be saved for future tweaking.

If you need it, here is some background on link cloaking, followed by a review of the free methods and finally a review of Amazing Cloaker - the best way to super-charge your affiliate links.

Why cloak your links?

As an affiliate you risk losing some of you income as a result of different actions or reactions of your site visitors. The three main benefits of cloaking your URLs are:

• Link cloaking helps maximize your affiliate income. It does this by reducing the accidental or intentional removal of your affiliate ID from the URL. See below for how this can happen.
• Your site visitors benefit as they see a user-friendly URL instead of what can sometimes be a clumsy looking URL with numbers and other codes.
• Visitors can sometimes be hesitant to click a link to a product that you are recommending if it looks like you are only making the recommendation to pick up a commission. A cloaked link, combined with a genuine story about how the product has helped you save time or money, will help improve the look of the link and reduce unnecessary anxiety about following your recommendation.

Stop for a moment and imagine the following scenario.

You have tried and tested the products you want to promote. You sign up with the affiliate program, set up your web site, gather testimonies, write your story about the product then add your affiliate-coded URL. The next step is to wait for the commissions to start rolling in. But for some reason although you are getting people to your page, you are not getting as many sales commissions as you expected. One reason might be that your affiliate URL is being altered. Sometimes this happens by accident, sometimes by design. Either way, you are missing out on income. Just imagine how much difference it would make if you were to get just one more sales commission per day!

There are a number of reasons an affiliate ID “goes missing”. Here are the two main ones.

• Affiliate ID is replaced

A visitor to your site copies your URL, pastes it into their browser (minus your affiliate ID), sets up their own affiliate account and replaces your affiliate code with theirs. They get a discount on their purchase (some affiliate programs frown upon this but there isn’t much that can be done to avoid it) and you get nothing for your efforts. Affiliate URL cloaking provides the immediate benefit of “hiding” the sometimes ugly affiliate encoded link and provides your visitors with a user-friendly URL to click on, and it makes it difficult for people to give themselves a discount at your expense.

• Affiliate ID is removed

The visitor simply reads the website address from your un-cloaked URL. Even if you try to hide it, there are several other ways to copy the link. The visitor then simply deletes the affiliate ID and goes directly to the merchant’s site and you lose out again. The Amazing Cloaker works to prevent this from happening. An added benefit of using the Amazing Cloaker is that you can choose to be upfront with your visitors and give them the destination website or you can hide it completely until after they click on the link. You make the choice.

But isn’t link cloaking deceptive?

Some people might view cloaking as deceptive. By clicking on a mystery link they may end up at an undesirable destination. The Amazing Cloaker gives you the tools to create user-friendly page names, titles and common sense URL link wording to assure your visitor that the link is genuine.

Three ways to prevent loss of your affiliate commissions (or at least minimize losses)

As I mentioned before, there are three main methods of cloaking affiliate links or any links for that matter. There are dozens of different ways of achieving the same outcome, but I have narrowed it down to my favorite, top-performing three. The great thing is that the first two are FREE.

• TinyURL

The TinyURL re-direct. The quickest and easiest! Although it is free it is less effective than the next two options. It does not require you to load anything to your web server as it is externally hosted on TinyURL.com. It does not give the most attractive link but it does get the job done quick and easy. You do it by going to the TinyURL website, enter your destination URL and TinyURL generates a simple code (for example: http://tinyurl.com/yqslhm) which you paste into your forum post, website text and where ever you want people to follow your affiliate link. The limitations are that once it is posted onto a forum or some other place where you do not have the ability to edit your post, there is no way to edit the TinyURL. This can become a problem if your affiliate ID link is changed or you decide to use another affiliate program.

• PHP redirect

The PHP redirect. Fast, free and effective. It does require you to have PHP running on your server (99.9% will) and you will have to upload a PHP file. This option has some key advantages over TinyURL. First, is the ability to edit the link name and destination URL. You simply cannot change the TinyURL link once it is created. Second, for the affiliate marketer just starting out and reluctant to pay for “another affiliate marketing tool” the PHP redirect is perhaps the best method to start out with.

• Amazing Cloaker

The Amazing Cloaker method. All the bells and whistles, advanced protection and cloaking. I personally prefer the Amazing Cloaker for the many benefits it delivers. It is simple to use. Easy to access from a desktop shortcut. It is packed with options that give you the power to choose just how much cloaking you will implement. It works with all the main affiliate networks and programs. With the most powerful settings selected, it will gives you maximum cloaking coupled with advanced cookie techniques, that work to maximize your return on investment. How?

The advanced cookie feature helps capture affiliate commissions even if visitors unintentionally remove or damage your affiliate ID. This might happen when the visitor reads your product review today and goes directly to the website at a later time. There is usually no malicious intent, it might be that they remembered the name of the site you referred them to and wasn’t in the mood to buy the first time. When they first read your review, with the advanced cookie feature enabled, a cookie is placed on their computer that links your affiliate ID with the eventual purchase.

I have started to use link-cloaking for most of my online activities. Without it there is a risk of losing a considerable percentage of my commissions that are a part of my product recommendations. Whether you choose the free methods or opt to go with a premium product can I suggest that you take a few moments now to consider how link cloaking can benefit you.

Brendan.

But, and it is a very big but, after buying and trying several packages and researching many more, I noticed one common thread among every web hosting company I tried and every web hosting company I researched. They all offer web hosting and not much else. Sure, most will also help you register a domain name and others will even give you a whole swag of useful tools to clutter up your website. But very, very few offer much else.

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An effective way to accomplish this is to…

1. Remove old baggage before you start planning. Old baggage could be a nagging thought about “one day” having to do deal with a minor annoyance created by one of your neighbors. It could be a big issue relating to family or finances. What ever it is, put it aside.Excess baggage is not a good thing. That is why airlines charge more to carry it. They know it costs more to carry more. Dump it from your brain. It helps to write it down. Just get it out of the way.
2. Plan your trip. Keeping with the travel metaphor, once you have off-loaded the old baggage, decide where you will be going in 2008. Write down your next way-points. What will it be like when you have arrived? Picture yourself there. Sift through the old baggage and decide if there are any items that will hinder your journey. Burn them!Find those things that will be helpful and freshen them up. Repack them by writing each one down with a date by which you can realistically accomplish it.Planning includes setting priorities. If you are driving across the country then unless fuel, food and rest stops are scheduled as a high priority, disaster awaits. Pick through your travel plans and prioritize key aspects of the journey. Always, always make time for your family and friends.
3. Monitor the GPS. There is little point going on a journey without some form of navigational assistance. Keep track of where you are, where you need to be and how you can bridge the gap. Monitor and if necessary re-write intermediate goals to keep you on track.

   It is better to slow down once in a while in order to enjoy the company of your loved ones rather than neglect them at all costs in order to get there on time. If you don’t know what I mean, try taking your family on a days outing without stopping to take in the scenery, no coffee and no strolls in the country. Everyone will get there on time and everyone will be 100% miserable.It is possible to achieve complete a journey and successfully make it to the next way-point and arrive with relationships still intact or even stronger.

Enjoy the journey, take it easy and see you in 2008.

Brendan Brewster