So you want to cloak that long and obvious affiliate link? Earn 100% of the affiliate commissions you deserve now! After surfing up so many different solutions on the internet, I've finally found the perfect solution. Note: This tutorial is mainly aimed at Blogger users, for Wordpress users you could also use these methods but you have better alternatives, visit the end of the post for more information.
It has become obvious that being an affiliate for a product can earn you giant bulks of cash online, and because of the fact that we all know about this “affiliate” thing, selfish readers often copy the main url of the product and purchase it instead of buying it through your referral link, they hate giving us credit.
How hiding affiliate links can benefit you:
- Generate more sales
- People can't remove your id
- Track Statistics (Which people buys the most)
There are two main methods for Bloggers to hide their affiliate links, both requires Javascripts (which 99% of the computers in the world has). To use html codes in your posts make sure you choose Edit HTML instead of Compose on the top right hand corner.
1st Method
<a href="YOUR-AFFILIATE-URL" onmouseover="window.status='STATUS-BAR-URL'; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">TEXT
Replace YOUR-AFFILIATE-URL with your referral link, don't worry no one can see this link unless they read your page source (less than 2% of the people do).
Replace STATUS-BAR-URL with what you want to display in the status bar in the bottom of the browser, make sure it's a valid link (don't show your referral id).
Replace TEXT with your own custom text.
2nd Method
<FORM><INPUT type="button" value="TEXT" onClick="window.open('YOUR-AFFILIATE-URL','mywindow','width=400,height=200,toolbar=yes,location=yes,directories=yes,status=yes,menubar=yes,scrollbars=yes,copyhistory=yes,resizable=yes')"></FORM>
Replace TEXT with your own custom text.
Replace YOUR-AFFILIATE-URL with your referral link, you can't see this link because buttons do not show a status.
Note: Test out the two methods from above on your homepage using a html code gadget, sometimes they do not work, if they don't you can use this last method that works all the time.
Last Method
<a href="http://www.yahoo.com/" rel="nofollow" onclick="window.location.replace('http://www.google.com/'); return false;">Click Here Shows Yahoo but Goes to Google</a>
Change Yahoo to the status bar url and change Google to your actual referral link, change the "Click Here..." into your custom text.
There are two downsides while using this method, if the user chooses to right click the link and open a new tab or window, then they will be literally directed to your status bar url. If a user naturally clicks on your link, they will be directed to your referral link, but the back button becomes grey-ed out and the user cannot go back a page unless they look up history.
Yes, I know, hiding affiliate links for Blogger users is such a pain, but apart from that I love everything that Blogger provides.
Tactics for cloaking your affiliate links:
- For fake urls that you show on the status bar, show the link to the actual product but without your referral link. (Don't worry they won't literally type the url, they think what they see)
- For texts, make them sound normal, try and not name them “Click Here”, just name the link the product's name.
- Remember, never use a URL-shortening software, it is considered to be low-class and all updated browsers naturally ban them.
For more information and Wordpress users, please visit How to Hide Your Affiliate Links and How to Hide Affiliate Link. Learn more about the second method at Opening a New Window with JavaScript.
For a simpler version of the 1st method use this Link Cloaker code generator instead. I recommend you to check both of the boxes for “Open in new window” and “No follow for Search Engine bots”.
Test out your links and generate more sales, have fun :D