Affiliate marketing is a powerful way to earn online, but one challenge many marketers face is link cloaking. Cloaking your affiliate links not only makes them look cleaner and more professional but also helps protect your commissions from being lost due to link stripping or tampering. In this article, we’ll show you how to cloak your affiliate links using a PHP redirect method – a simple, effective, and free technique.
What is Link Cloaking?
Link cloaking is the process of disguising a long, complex affiliate link with a shorter, more attractive URL. For example, instead of displaying a lengthy affiliate link like http://affiliate-site.com/?ref=yourID, you can cloak it to appear as http://yourdomain.com/go/product.
Benefits of Link Cloaking Free with PHP Redirects
Professional Appearance: Cloaked links look cleaner and more trustworthy, enhancing user experience and increasing click-through rates.
Protection of Affiliate Commissions: Cloaked links prevent users from seeing and potentially stripping out your affiliate ID, ensuring you get credited for the sales you generate.
Easy Management: It’s easier to update and manage your affiliate links. If an affiliate link changes, you only need to update the redirect file instead of changing the link on every page of your site.
How to Cloak Affiliate Links Free Using PHP Redirect
While it sounds difficult, it really is not. Simply follow these steps to cloak your affiliate links using PHP:
Create a Folder for Redirects: First, create a folder named go, out, link, (or any name you prefer) in the root directory of your website. This folder will contain all your PHP redirect files. To do this open cpanel, files, click your domain name, and then click add folder.
Create a PHP Redirect File: Inside the newly created folder, create and name the product/service folder. Inside the product/service folder add a PHP file for the affiliate link you want to cloak and save as index.php
Add Redirect Code to the PHP File: Open the newly created PHP file and add the following code:
Access Your Cloaked Link: Your cloaked link will now be http://yourdomain.com/go/product. When users click this link, they will be redirected to the actual affiliate URL, but they will only see the clean, cloaked URL.
I know this seems like a lot of work, but cloaking your affiliate links using a PHP redirect is a straightforward and effective way to enhance your affiliate marketing strategy. It improves the appearance of your links, protects your commissions, and simplifies link management.