What is Link Cloaking and Why we should use it?

Link Cloaking is one of the most used techniques to hide affiliate links to increase conversion rate by the affiliate marketers. If you are into affiliate marketing, then you must be knowing that the affiliate links looks really crappy with that certain numbers & referrals Id. Thus making it look weird and decreasing the rate of clicks on that particular link.

But with the help of the link cloaking technique, you can make that weird link into a neat looking link that really helps to increase the conversion rate. Let me show you with an example:

The below shown is my affiliate link for the SEOPressor WordPress Plugin:

http://harneet199.seopressor.hop.clickbank.net (Not Cloaked)

AND

http://www.postfever.com/recommends/seopressor (Cloaked)

Both of these links are redirected to the same page from where the user can purchase SEOPressor plugin. So, which link you would personally like to click on? Think about it. And I am pretty much sure that you would have thought that the second ink is more trustworthy and it clearly says recommended in it.
 
 

[Image Credit: Flickr]

3 Reasons why you should use Link Cloaking

1. Google Hates Affiliate Links

One of the main reason to use link cloaking technique is to prevent yourself from getting hit by the Google algo updates. Google hates affiliate links, and they will not allow you to use affiliate links & get better ranking at the same time.

So, to earn money & to rank better at the same time, we have to use the link cloaking technique. Don’t misjudge cloaking as a black-hat SEO trick, it is just preventing Google to hate you
 
 

2. Better Conversion Rate

People hate to click on the affiliate links because of their weird structure. They include a lot of numbers, referral Id, “?” “=”, thus making it look spammy.

So, to increase the conversion rate, we have to include the links that looks decent & trustworthy. And the best way to do that is to use the link cloaking technique. So use it and make your links look trustworthy
 
 

3. Track Clicks

Link cloaking is really effective in terms of the tracking the performance of the link. It gives the details about the number of clicks & you can easily track the conversion rate.

If you are using some third party affiliate system to promote affiliates then you can easily check whether the data given by the affiliate system matches the data with your data. If it is not matching, you can easily ping the affiliates team & get it corrected. It protects your money as well.
 
 
Do share your views about the link cloaking technique? We would love to hear from you via comments.