5 Simple Ways Cloak and Redirect Affiliate Links for Maximum Profits

You may have come across all the hype and hula over how affiliate links are being stolen and affiliates are losing as much as 40 – 50% in commissions. All of this simply turns baseless when people come to know that there is a way out of this problem. Commission stealing is a serious problem in the affiliate marketing industry and affiliate networks such as Clickbank have taken good measures to tweak the glitches in their systems. Some people might use cloaked affiliate links or redirect pages because of the fear of losing on commission or just to hide affiliate URLs that are long and ugly.

The whole concept of affiliate link cloaking or redirecting visitors is more to do with people’s attitude towards their business. In a more precise tone, it’s simply psychological. It’s not uncommon for hesitant people to ignorantly cut off the ugly part of the affiliate link and paste it their browser. Now, let’s compare the following 2 links:

http://www.work-from-home.com/copy.php?storefront=atjefoger

(and)

http://www.work-from-home.com

Which link would you click on if you had to? That pretty much clears it all.

You can always replace long affiliate URLs with links that are cloaked or use server side redirection so that people don’t feel like being sold or get turned off by the length and look of the affiliate link. There are various ways to create clean looking links that you’d be able to use to direct potential customers to the sales page. Go through the different methods given below and choose the one that fits you and meets your requirements.

1. Directory Redirection

Create a simple directory on your web server once you are connected to it. The next step is to create an index.html and insert the redirection code in it, that’s about it.

2. Sub domain Redirection

Most of the web-hosting service providers allow you to create a number of sub domains. Just log in to your control panel, create a new sub domain and set it up to redirect to the affiliate link.

3. Redirection Scripts

There are several scripts online at your disposal that can be installed on your website, which will redirect your links and protect them as well. This code might have to be inserted in the header section of your page.

4. Software Tools

Software programs such as LinkGaurdII and Affiliate Link Cloaker do a good job of taking your long and ugly looking URL and cover it up with a redirect link.

5. Online Services

Services like NameStick turn your long affiliate links into short and clean links. This particular service not only allows you set up domain forwarding but also helps you put up unlimited sub domains. NameStick URLs can be bookmarked and you are also able to customize the title that’s seen in a visitor’s bookmark listing. Lots of people trust this company to create clean and efficient affiliate links for their business.

If you are looking forward to grow your affiliate business on the long term, and are serious about expanding it, it’s crucial that you take immediate action. Cloak or redirect your affiliate links to turn them more user friendly. It might actually surprise you once you see the kind of results you can achieve with such little effort.