Link Cloaking - How Does it Work?

If you're an affiliate marketer, chances are high that you've heard the term "link cloaking". There seems to be a lot of misinformation regarding the meaning and purpose of link cloaking, and I'll try to bust some of the myths here.

According to Wikipedia "Cloaking" is a black hat search engine optimization (SEO) technique in which the content presented to the search engine spider is different to that presented to the user's browser.

The myth is that link cloaking can get you banned from search engines, and that only "evil" people do it in the first place.

That's quite true when it's used in the context of search engine optimization. Search engines don't like it when people try to manipulate their algorithms with cloaking content pages. Therefore, they penalize any site that attempts to manipulate their search results using that tactic.

However, "cloaking" has a very different meaning and in affiliate marketing. An affiliate marketer may want to cloak his affiliate link for a few reasons.

The first is to hide the actual affiliate link from being displayed in the browser. This helps the affiliate prevent commission theft, among other things. Commission theft happens when other affiliates replace your affiliate link with theirs while buying and deny you the commissions you deserve.

This doesn't happen much in niche markets where customers are not affiliates themselves. However, in competitive markets like online marketing, search engine optimization and in the affiliate marketing niche itself, almost all potential customers are also affiliates.

This is especially true for products sold on ClickBank, since ClickBank actually encourages affiliates to buy with their own affiliate link.

The second is related to split testing multiple pages of the same website. It can also be used for testing different products, while hiding the actual URL of the page. This allows affiliates to maximize their commissions by finding pages or products that convert better.

Plus, link cloaking can also be used to display optin offers or other links on the merchant site, which you usually have no control over. As long as you have the right software, this is pretty easy to do.

Cloaking links can also help the affiliate marketer get viral traffic. When some one bookmarks or shares your cloaked link, they are in effect sharing your affiliate link. As a result, you get more people clicking on your affiliate link, and more commissions.

No matter how you choose to use link cloaking, make sure you use it responsibly. The difference between black hat link cloaking and white hat link cloaking is transparency. If you make sure your vistors are aware they are viewing a cloaked links and give them a way to remove the cloaking, it's a viable and legal marketing tool.