Affiliate Links

[NDG]

I've noticed that different affiliates use different methods to cloak their affiliate links,
while some do not cloak their affiliate links at all. Several years back, there was
concern that visitors weren't attracted to clicking affiliate links, and many affiliates
started using various different methods to start cloaking affiliate links for their visitors.

I'm beginning to wonder if it really matters anymore, and if cloaking the links using
different methods may affect the tracking that affiliate programs use for the links.

With some affiliate programs, I'll see downloads and no clicks, and other strange
results that make me wonder if their is a problem with the affiliate program, or
could the method of cloaking affiliate links somehow affect the affiliate tracking.

Your thoughts?

 

[AussieDave]

Regardless of the method used to get from A to B, if the affiliate link has not be altered and is copied verbatim, whoever clicks that link will be tracked. The problem your experiencing with questioning the clicks etc etc. If you were to use the affiliate links without cloaking them, especially with banners, these track impressions and for all we know other information too.

As I said, as long as the affiliate link you receive from the program, is not altered and remains in tact, what every redirection cloaking method used, it will still send players via the original affiliate link.

For a point of reference to what some programs will do to acquire your player acquisition methods, a while back FA hailed their new Silverlight tracker as the bees knees. It was dressed up and marketed to look beneficial to affiliates. Though after dust settled, affiliates finally caught on to its more sinister capabilities. Least to say it eventually got axed. While this program gave affiliates a lot of insight into their traffic, it was also harvesting that information and was readily available to FA too.

I track each click my side. If these are within an excepted conversion ratio, then I'm happy. If however these stats fall outside my tolerance levels, then I know either the casino I'm marketing is not suited to my site visitors or worse, I'm being shaved.

I still think visitors are less likely to click on a referral link, than they are clicking links, on the same domain.

As far as Google, it specifically says, if you don't want the bot crawling a folder, you block that folder in your robots.txt and also make the page noindex, nofollow.

 

[roey]

IMO a nofollow cloaked link is better than a visible huge affiliate link, short urls ie bitly offsite, cloaked onsite.

 

[Guard Dog]

I currently don't do much to 'prettify' the URLS. I used to for tracking purposes, but with Piwik I don't do it. I can pretty much see which URLs are clicked with that stats program without doing anything.

As far as tinyurls, bitly - for me, I don't ever click on them. Just don't trust them. I'd bet I'm not the only one.

 

[Viriatu]

I currently don't do much to 'prettify' the URLS. I used to for tracking purposes, but with Piwik I don't do it. I can pretty much see which URLs are clicked with that stats program without doing anything.

As far as tinyurls, bitly - for me, I don't ever click on them. Just don't trust them. I'd bet I'm not the only one.

Same here but at some point it is not all about cloacking an ugly link... for me it became the one way to change all links at one single place, we all know hoe tickef ip it can be to remove those link of programs that go rouge....

 

[Guard Dog]

Same here but at some point it is not all about cloacking an ugly link... for me it became the one way to change all links at one single place, we all know hoe tickef ip it can be to remove those link of programs that go rouge....

Good point... Here is an image of what I have setup.



So - I can move advertisers around and then even remove them entirely. I like the setup this way... works out well. And it is sitewide.

 

[AussieDave]

As far as tinyurls, bitly - for me, I don't ever click on them. Just don't trust them.

Agreed. These tinyurl's serve their purpose for twitter etc etc. But I sure wouldn't place my trust in them for referral links.

 

[BetSpinWinAffs]

Agreed. These tinyurl's serve their purpose for twitter etc etc. But I sure wouldn't place my trust in them for referral links.

I think it comes down to trust, they are the norm on twitter and now being used on facebook and if it is a trusted page/company etc posting a tiny url I don't mind clicking. but if it is a private message through facebook or something from someone I dont know, then just like any other link I wouldn't click it