{"id":1378,"date":"2023-01-11T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-11T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stephenfbrown.com\/?p=1378"},"modified":"2023-01-11T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-01-11T13:00:00","slug":"cloaking-links-to-protect-your-commissions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stephenbrownsblog.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/11\/cloaking-links-to-protect-your-commissions\/","title":{"rendered":"Cloaking Links to Protect Your Commissions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h1 class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-heading\">Protect Your Commissions By Cloaking Your Links<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>Link cloaking is a very important part of affiliate marketing.&nbsp; In a nutshell, link cloaking is a way to protect your affiliate commissions from being stolen.&nbsp; It\u2019s not totally foolproof.&nbsp; Smart individuals who are well-educated about the matter can still figure out how to keep you from getting your commission.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most people won\u2019t go that far, so cloaking your links will prevent most commission loss. How do people steal affiliate commissions?&nbsp; Have you ever hovered over a link and noticed that the link was an obvious affiliate link?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some people type in the parent domain instead of clicking the link as a way of making sure the owner of the site gets paid 100{495e61a8be0728ba5e4172c16a68a1b05f8df91b32cf783b0a6ac5a97f0ba813} for the sale.&nbsp; Some people falsely believe that if they buy from an affiliate link, they\u2019ll have to pay more for a commission mark-up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some people actually do it for a different reason.&nbsp; If you\u2019re promoting a ClickBank product, especially to other marketers, many of them know they can insert their <em>own<\/em> ClickBank ID and get what\u2019s usually a 50{495e61a8be0728ba5e4172c16a68a1b05f8df91b32cf783b0a6ac5a97f0ba813} or more discount on the product.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is a different type of affiliate commission theft, because the person doing it gets the affiliate commission themselves, rather than just making sure <em>you<\/em> don\u2019t get it.&nbsp; Most people don\u2019t do that, of course.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most people are pretty honest, and don\u2019t mind giving you a little affiliate commission in exchange for recommending a good product to them.&nbsp; But it\u2019s enough of a concern that you should take steps to prevent it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can easily set up your own link cloaking system.&nbsp; What you would do is set up a directory on one of your domains.&nbsp; Most marketers use the domain of their own name, as in bobsmith.com.&nbsp; They typically have a subdirectory called \/recommends\/.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" data-src=\"https:\/\/stephenfbrown.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/ecommerce-2607114_1280-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"protect your  commissions\" class=\"wp-image-1379 lazyload\"\/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/stephenfbrown.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/ecommerce-2607114_1280-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"protect your  commissions\" class=\"wp-image-1379 lazyload\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stephenbrownsblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/ecommerce-2607114_1280-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/stephenbrownsblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/ecommerce-2607114_1280-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stephenbrownsblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/ecommerce-2607114_1280-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/stephenbrownsblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/ecommerce-2607114_1280.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/noscript><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Then in that directory, they create a new subdirectory for each product.&nbsp; It would look something like this: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bobsmith.com\/recommends\/awesomeproductname\">http:\/\/www.bobsmith.com\/recommends\/awesomeproductname<\/a>. In that directory, they place a very simple PHP redirect called index.php.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whenever they send someone to the above link, the script will redirect to your affiliate link.&nbsp; All you have to do is create a file in Notepad or your favorite HTML editor and name is index.php.&nbsp; Then paste the following information into the file and upload it to your directory:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&lt; ?php<br>header(&#8220;location:http:\/\/affiliates.programhere.com\/5555&#8221;);<br>?&gt;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are a number of link cloaking scripts available.&nbsp; Most of them are relatively easy to install and use.&nbsp; There\u2019s a big benefit to using a script rather than doing it yourself.&nbsp; Using your simple redirect, there isn\u2019t an easy way to check how much traffic you\u2019ve sent to your link.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most link cloaking scripts allow you to add new links very easily within an administrative area, and then each link is tracked so that you can see how much traffic is going through the link.&nbsp; If you use your own file, the only way to tell how much traffic you\u2019ve sent is through your affiliate stats, which may be inaccurate, or through your web server\u2019s stats, which may be clunky to use or hard to understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another way you can do it is to use a link cloaking tool, such as WP LinkNinja.&nbsp; This lets you enter the raw affiliate link and name your link whatever you want as an extension of your domain. Then you can log in and check stats to see how your link is performing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Use The Link Below To Save 20{495e61a8be0728ba5e4172c16a68a1b05f8df91b32cf783b0a6ac5a97f0ba813} On WP LinkNinja Today And Stop Losing Commissions!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-heading\">WP LinkNinja 20{495e61a8be0728ba5e4172c16a68a1b05f8df91b32cf783b0a6ac5a97f0ba813} OFF<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Protect Your Commissions By Cloaking Your Links Link cloaking is a very important part of affiliate marketing.&nbsp; In a nutshell, link cloaking is a way to protect your affiliate commissions from being stolen.&nbsp; It\u2019s not totally foolproof.&nbsp; Smart individuals who are well-educated about the matter can still figure out how to keep you from getting &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/stephenbrownsblog.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/11\/cloaking-links-to-protect-your-commissions\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Cloaking Links to Protect Your Commissions<\/span>Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","slim_seo":{"title":"Cloaking Links to Protect Your Commissions - Stephen Brown&#039;s Blog","description":"Protect Your Commissions By Cloaking Your Links Link cloaking is a very important part of affiliate marketing.&nbsp; In a nutshell, link cloaking is a way to pr"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[98,102,235,822],"class_list":["post-1378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-affiliate-marketing","tag-affiliate-link-cloaking","tag-affiliate-marketing","tag-cloaking-your-affiliate-links","tag-protect-your-commissions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenbrownsblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenbrownsblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenbrownsblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenbrownsblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenbrownsblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stephenbrownsblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenbrownsblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenbrownsblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenbrownsblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenbrownsblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}