The hidden danger of using URL redirection & cloaking services

There probably isn't an affiliate in the industry that this hasn't happened to - at least once.

You spend a couple of hours constructing an informative and helpful email or article, include your affiliate link for a related product or resource and shoot it out the public. Then, for whatever reasoning their convoluted thinking can come up, some joker will remove your affiliate information from the link and go directly to the website to make their purchase.

Even more troubling, is the "fellow marketer" who replaces YOUR affiliate ID with THEIRS so they can make a commission on their own purchase. And when they do - you've just been robbed by one of your own my friend.

Humph, whatever happened to "honor among thieves"?

But, there are a couple of methods you can use to keep this from happening.

I recommend that JanRon Digital Club affiliates use the FREE services of ShrinkMyLink.

It's quick and easy to take an ugly and recognizable affiliate link that looks like this, http://www.niche-content-packages.com/index.php?PARTNER=sbm and get a new shortened and cloaked link in just minutes.

Just go to ShrinkMyLink and in the box enter your affiliate link. Click the box that says, "Cloak" and hit the Shrink! button.



You will then be given two link options you can use.



Now when you use your new link and someone clicks on it, your affiliate link will be cloaked, which means it will NOT show up in their browser.



For even greater protection against commission thieves, I recommend you consider setting up a redirect link on your own domain. So, say you want to create a redirect link for Niche Content Packages. You just set up a new page on your domain called /niche-content-packages.html or something similar. In that page place the following code:


Now whenever you use the url, http://www.yourdomain.com/niche-content-packages.html - it will redirect to Niche-Content-Packages and your affiliate url is hidden.

Most people, myself included, set up a special sub-directory or folder on their domains to use specifically for redirects.

Example:

http://www.janronpublishing.com/goto/nichecontent.html

But - there is a possible danger in using an online service to shorten or cloak your links and it is the most important reason why I strongly suggest you set up a redirect link on your own domain.

While sites like TinyUrl.com and ShrinkMyLink have been around for years and I don't anticipate them shutting down operations any time soon, it has recently happened to other services like, lnk.to and jtty.com.

Unfortunately, all those people that had used these site's redirect or shortened links in ebooks, articles, newsletter archives and on their websites, suddenly found themselves with links that no longer worked.

If they had taken the extra step to set up a redirect link on their own domain and included that link in their ebooks, articles, etc., they could have simply changed the cloaked or shortened url in their own domain's redirect code and still have working links.

I'm not saying that the methods I'm recommending are 100% foolproof, because a determined and experienced commission thief will know how to get around them, but they will help cut down on the amount of commissions stolen from you.


(iamsbm)

Sharon Bray-McPherson
Yahoo ID: sbray12bray

Jan Tallent & Sharon Bray-McPherson
JanRon Publishing Digital Products