How to Hide Affiliate Links
Hiding Affiliate Links
As Web surfers become more knowledgeable of how affiliate
programs work, more people will omit your affiliate ID or use
someone else's ID when ordering. Either way, you lose
commissions you're supposed to get.
--Protect Commissions--
Using full window frame page is probably the most effective
(though not perfect) way to prevent such loss. In fact, all of
affiliate link cloaking software I know (including the famous
Affiliate Link Cloaker, http://www.affiliatelinkcloaker.com)
uses this method. The address bar won't display your affiliate
URL unless the affiliate site has a frame breaker. If visitors
book mark, they will come back to your frame page. This means
they use your affiliate ID every time. Also, keep in mind that
"right click" -> "view source" displays the affiliate site's
source, not the source of your page that contains your ID.
--Do It Yourself--
If you like this type of protection, you can do it without
buying software. First, download the file "sources.zip" from
http://www.thatswise.com/free/sources/cloak.html It contains two
files, "example.html" and "test.html." Open "example.html" with
Windows Notepad. In the 5th line (without counting blank lines),
you will find "affiliate_URL." Replace it with your actual
affiliate URL. (Don't delete quotation marks.) Then, save the
file with the name you like.
Basically, that is all you need to do, but Affiliate Link
Cloaker has a few extra tricks. Let's see the source of their
example page. Go to http://www.affiliatelinkcloaker.com/ese.html
>From the browser's tool bar, select "view" -> "source." (Don't
right click.) You will see only a comment, and you might think
the code is protected. But it's not. There are 45 carriage
returns after the comment. You need to scroll down to see the
codes. If you like this feature, replace "Howdy" in the first
line of example.html with whatever you want to say, and put a
lot of carriage returns after.
You will also notice the URL look like this, "ht..."
(If you see "ht..." please read HTML version of this issue at
http://www.thatswise.com/free/lessons/0803.html ) These are
numeric ampersand entities. Another way to display characters in
Web browsers. For example, "a" (If you see "a" please read
HTML version of this issue) is displayed as "a." To convert your
URL, replace each character of your affiliate link with the
corresponding entity. (I post the list of the entities at
http://www.thatswise.com/free/sources/entities.txt) To check if
you have converted the URL correctly, open "test.html" with
Notepad and replace "URL_Here" with your numeric ampersanded URL
and save. Then, open the file with your Web browser. You will
see the URL in normal characters. Past that converted URL in
"example.html," instead of the normal URL.
That's it. You've just hidden your affiliate link as secure as
Affiliate Link Cloaker does.
--Bonus--
You can download the e-book, "How to Hide Your Affiliate Links"
for free. You will find more detailed instructions and a few
more extra tricks. Please go to
http://www.thatswise.com/free/e-books/hide_links.html
You can get the book for yourself, or you can give it to your
affiliates.