We noticed some technical problems with one of our cloaked affiliate links the other day. Below, we’ll share a couple of solutions for those with similar problems.

Now, you might ask, why do we “cloak” our affiliate links at all? No, we aren’t trying to fool anyone; we try to provide “non-affiliate” links for anyone who’s not comfortable with us getting compensation for our recommendations. (I used to have misgivings about affiliate links too — but that’s another story.)

We just think that a link that looks like this:

solo-e.com/irecommend.html (not a real link)

is nicer than

1shippingcart.com/af=159847?&p=1725&u=www.recommendedsite.com/greatproduct.htm (also not a real link)

I first discovered the concept of “cloaked links” on one of Andrea Lee’s sites. Of course I knew it was an affiliate link, and I figure most everyone else knew too. But the link just seemed classier — not messy, not likely to get wrapped/cut off in a text emaiil, etc. And in my way of thinking, solo-e.com/irecommend.html implies a sort of partnership — both names in the title, that sort of thing. Like an affiliate relationship.

So, I went off in search of software to cloak links. I discovered what is probably the most widely-known version, and purchased it. Got my VA to transform all of our affiliate links. But after a few months, I started running into a couple of problems:

• When you click on the cloaked link, the content of the target site showed up, but the url in the browser address bar still shows solo-e.com/irecommend.html — even AFTER clicking another link on the site. Kinda annoying.
• It wasn’t set up to handle secure (https) pages properly. So if you moved through to payment, the page wouldn’t show that nice little lock that tells you your data is secure.
• Some target pages simply didn’t work properly — overlapping text, videos that didn’t sequence properly, etc.

Needless to say, I’ve stopped using that software and have removed it from our resource area.

Thank goodness for the Multiple Streams of Coaching Income list! Several people shared various solutions, all free, that I will share with you here:

• Use www.tinyurl.com, or other similar sites that shorten long links. (Note: sometimes, spam filters don’t like these.)
• Create a folder on your site with the name that you want to use; for example a folder called irecommend. In that folder put an index.htm file like this: Download index.htm, customized with your target link, of course; note that you could also add a tracking code as in this example. Then simply send folks to yoursite.com/irecommend. (Thanks to James Smith for this solution; James also suggests using this method to shorten other long links on your site for your user’s convenience.)
• A variation on the index.htm solution is to instead put an index.php file in the folder like this: Download example.php (from Joe Taylor via Casey Truffo)
• Simply create an html file wherever you want like this: Download example.html. This is really easy, no subdirectories, just one file per redirect. (Thanks to Tina Forsyth for this solution.)
• There is a free script available from www.webmasterinabox.net. Look in the upper left and sign up for the newsletter and you get the script…you can always unsubscribe later. This script has one of the same drawbacks — the url in the browser address bar keeps pointing to your site, even when other clicks are made. However, that may be acceptable for your circumstances! (Thanks to Linda Dessau for this solution.)

I hope one of these solutions works for you before you spend $59 like I did!

Last 5 posts by Terri Zwierzynski

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 17th, 2006 at 2:14 pm and is filed under Internet Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Web Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.