TheRandomForest.com

Jedi's Look Cool In Cloaks, Your Links Can Too!

If you read any blogs about Internet Marketing then I am sure you have read about the need to cloak your affiliate links and you may be wondering just how to do it. I am going to show you a very simple, quick and easy no frills way of doing it for your blog or website.

Before I continue here are some details about link cloaking just in case you don’t already know!

What is cloaking?

Cloaking, Link Cloaking, URL Cloaking or Affiliate Link Cloaking are all basically the same thing.

A link with one name runs a script that takes the user through to another link.

For example if I wanted to promote a product on my blog….. Let’s say OIO Publisher, then in order to earn affiliate commissions I need to send people to the sales page using my affiliate link.

Just hover over these two promo links and take a look at the URL (at the bottom of your browser)

Use Coupon Code Jan90-25 To Get OIO Publisher for Just $25 Throughout January

Use Coupon Code Jan90-25 To Get OIO Publisher for Just $25 Throughout January

The first link uses the raw affiliate link:
http://www.oiopublisher.com/ref.php?u=954

The second link uses the much more appealing cloaked link:
http://therandomforest.com/recommends/OIOPublisher.php

But Cloaking this link allows us much more than just a pretty link. Here are just a few of the advantages of cloaking.

• Your affiliate link is hidden and a nice link in place so the link looks more professional and trustworthy
• People in the know are less likely to strip your ID before they purchase the product
• Malicious cannot strip your affiliate ID and steal commissions from you
• If your affiliate link changes you only need to change it in the cloaked file

So How Do I Cloak My Links

Like I said this is the no bells, extremely simple, straightforward and FREE way of cloaking your affiliate links.

1. First Download this simple php file (Right Click and Save Link To Your Harddrive): CloakedLink.php
2. Open the file in a text editing program such as Text Edit.
3. Replace the text YOUR AFFILIATE URL HERE with the text of your affiliate link.
4. Save the file with a desired link name (keep .php extension). In my example the file was named OIOPublisher.php.
5. Upload the file to your website. I created a folder named /recommends in the root of my blog, so that i can keep all my cloaked links filed neatly.
6. When You create a link, simply link to the desired file. In my example. OIO Publisher links to “http://therandomforest.com/recommends/OIOPublisher.php”.
7. Everytime you need a new cloaked link just follow these directions. I keep a copy of the CloakedLink.php on my desktop.

I would recommend cloaking all affiliate links and any links that may at any point in the future. That way you have easy control over them

Any problems with these steps, please just leave a message in this post or email me at forest.parks@gmail.com.

The Wordpress Option: If you like the idea of cloaking your links but don’t want to bugger around with php files and uploading every time you need to link you can use a great wordpress plugin to easily spread cloaked affiliate links throughout your blog. Check out Wordpress Link Cloak.