How To Hide ("Cloak") Your Affiliate Links to Get Higher Clickthroughs and Make More Sales!

Let me ask you a question. Which of the following URLs would you most likely click on?

http://affiliateID.mp3trainer.hop.clickbank.net

http://www.eating-raw-energy.com/

If you answered the second one, then you are correct. It's quite obvious that, at first glance, the second URL appears more natural and less “salesy”, right? That's why it will get a better clickthrough.

But there's also another reason why using the a more natural looking URL is important.

Link Theft

Suppose someone clicks through your affiliate link and discovers Eating for Energy for the very first time as a result of your referral or recommendation. When they land on the product sales page and they like it and want to buy, if they have a clickbank account and they are savvy to clickbank hoplinks, they can clear their cookies and or type in their hoplink URL in their browser and refresh the page. That drops their cookie on their machine, over-writing your cookie. Then they simply order through their own link and they get the commission and you don't.

If you're a long time clickbank affiliate, this is old news to you. If you're a new to clickbank and you didn't know about this, don't worry, I'm about to show you how you can protect your precious hoplink by hiding, cloaking or redirecting, your links.

Thankfully, link theft in the health and fitness sector is not a huge problem (as it is in other online arenas). But that still doesn't mean you shouldn't “cloak” you links.

As we saw above, clickbank hoplinks are ugly and have lower clickthrough rates and provide no sales value. People have no idea what they are clicking (or not) on and are thus less likely to do so. At least with a proper domain name (URL) there is some indication as to where the customer will be landing.

How To Hide ("cloak") Your Affiliate Links

Now that you now WHY you should hide your links, now let's have a look at how to do it.

#1 - Hide webpage links in your HTML using a different display and destination link

The lowest level of hiding your links is simply to use your clickbank hoplink as the destination link (or hyperlink) and the actual URL you want the potential customer to see as the display link in your HTML.

For example. if your affiliate nickname is XXXXXX, your hoplink looks like this:

http://XXXXXX.mp3trainer.hop.clickbank.net

Your goal is to hide this obvious sales-promoting link. If you've been leaving your affiliate links raw, exposed and naked for all the world to see, then you may want to cover them using this method (at the very least).

So it's very simple, when you are putting a link on a web page, always hide the hoplink in your HTML and show the destination link as www.EatingforEnergy.ca (or your own URL).

Example HTML code:

<a href="http://XXXXXX.mp3trainer.hop.clickbank.net>www.EatingforEnergy.ca</a>

The easier way to do this, at least in Dreamweaver and most blogs, is simply to highlight the text or URL that you want your visitors to click on and add your affiliate hoplink as the “hyperlink or destination URL”.

The display URL will look like www.EatingforEnergy.ca but will send people through your affiliate link (be sure to replace the XXXXXX's with your affiliate ID).

#2 - Purchase a domain name from a domain registrar for the sole purpose of cloaking your affiliate link.

There are more domain name registrars out there than you can count, but if you register your domains with a company that offers free forwarding service with URL masking, then by all means use it. I use www.namesecure.com for my domains because it's only about 9 bucks per domain to register and that includes free forwarding and masking!

All you need to do is register a domain and keep in mind how important the name you choose is to your click throughs. Your choice of domain name alone can give you an unfair, yet highly desired, advantage.

Once you've purchased your domain name just log into your account and click on “domain or URL forwarding.” Type in your affiliate hoplink as the domain to forward to. Then click on “mask domain” and enter the display URL to match your new chosen domain name.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me at info(at)totalwellnessconsulting.ca.

Thanks again for your great work!

Yuri Elkaim, BPHE, CK, RHN
Author, Eating for Energy

PH4 - 363 Sorauren Ave. | Toronto, ON M6R 3C1

Raw Food Diet, Weight Loss, Eating for Energy