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Affiliate Link Cloaking

As you get more an more involved with Internet Marketing you will start to read quite a bit about affiliate link cloaking.

Link cloaking is basically a way for an Internet marketer to hide their affiliate links so instead of the link reading http://bestproductonthemarket.com/?id=10567 it would just read http://bestproductonthemarket.com. In essence you are not displaying the affiliate id number on the link itself.

Many marketers swear by it, while others say don’t worry about it. I suppose it’s really more just a matter of opinion.

The major concern for most Internet marketers is one of two things. Some are worried about other marketers replacing the affiliate link with their own link when they need to purchase a product. In other words somebody could be stealing your profits.

Others say that some people just don’t like the fact that somebody is making money every time they click on a link and purchase a product. The argument here is that many people will remove the affiliate link and copy and paste only the source address into the navigation bar.

I’m personally a little more opposed to link cloaking myself. It seems to me that the term cloak means to hide. To me when you are hiding something you are being deceptive. I don’t see a reason to hide anything from my readers or visitors. I would like to think that they know there is a chance I could earn a commission from their purchases and hopefully they would be happy for me.

I will say, however, that link cloaking has it’s own market. You can purchase and download all types of different link cloaking tools if that’s the way you want to run your online business.

However, just because the tools are out there does not mean you should use them. I also believe there is a good chance the FTC will jump on this sooner or later and ban the use of link cloaking tools.

Anyway…now you know a bit about link cloaking. Obviously in the end, it is your decision to decide to use them or not. I just wanted to give my two cents.

Best Wishes!

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