Questions on Cloaking

Here are a few reasons I cloak:

1 - It allows me to track the user's click actions through a PHP tracking script
2 - It masks the awkward looking URLs provided by the affiliate networks
3 - It may prevent users from using their own affiliate links
4 - It can help prevent cookie-hijacking malware programs

Best,

Jeremy

Try this link:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7352837742173741830

It's not the best quality, but it does get the point across.

The technique shown in the video is simple to implement. However, there is still one problem, especially when using clickbank and some others: once the user clicks on the cloaked link and arrives on our CB affiliate page, the hoplink is shown in the browser's address bar... so link bypassing is still possible. I have done that myself I must admit, e.g. buying thru my CB link rather then someone else's.

I found this free online cloaking tool for Clickbank which cloaks in such a way that the user will be able to see our CB nickname only when they arrive at the order form.

http://www.hotitemfinder.com/cbtools/linkcloaker.php

(you need to use 'encode' option if you don't want to have your cb affiliate link displayed in the source code - it will use javascript)

So I wondered how to code this manually so that it works also for other than CB hoplinks...

Jana

Does anyone know if there are any advantage or penalties when you use PHP 301 redirects on your page?

your page is: "mydomain.com/product.html"

your links are: "mydomain.com/product.php"

the user is redirected to: http://affliatelink (which ultimately takes them to the merchant)

Does google et al frown on this?
Or, does it help since you are masking the affiliate links?
Would it help to use the "no follow"?
If you use "onMouseOver" and display the merchant URL (which is where they are going) does that help?

Thanks.