5 simple methods to cloak your affiliate links and protected them from thief and losing your commissions!

The first method is simple and uses a feature called "click tracking" that is standard with most popular autoresponders. such as Aweber and Getresponse

"Click tracking" converts any link in your email to a tracking link - thus masking your affiliate links and tracking your clicks on each link.

For example in Aweber This affiliate link: http://nickname.covertlink.hop.clickbank.net


Is converted to:
http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/3XH0FJN3


The downside is, this method will only work in the emails you send through your autoreponder service.

The second method is also simple to implement and will work in emails and on web pages, blogs, or online ads. You can use a service like TinyURL.com to cloak your affiliate links and get a shorter URL.

This affiliate link:
http://nickname.covertlink.hop.clickbank.net


Is converted to:
http://tinyurl.com/385kxg


Another service for less than $5 a month you can protect Your Affiliate Link with called LinkShield

This gives you a different "redirect" link that you can use to promote your Clickbank product. Nobody will see that it's a Clickbank link or be able to steal your commission from you.

for example with LinkShield

This affiliate link:
http://nickname.covertlink.hop.clickbank.net

Is converted to:
http://www.linkshield.com/s/387_1

The third method is a little more complicated, but only requires a text editor and FTP software. To start, open a text editor like NotePad and paste the following code at the top of the page:

[< ? header("Location:http://nickname.covertlink.hop.clickbank.net");
exit;
? >]

Note: remove brackets "[" and "]" I put them so it wont conflict with squidoo html editor and there is no space between "<" and "?"

this method requires that PHP is installed on your server. Most modern hosting companies such as Host Gator have PHP installed. But if you don't, you can use the next method.

For the final step, you have two choices:

Choice #1: save the page as "covertlinks.php" or whatever you want to call it and upload it to the home directory on your server. You link would look like this: http://yourdomain.com/covertlinks.php

Choice #2: save the page as "index.php" and upload it to a new directory on your server. For example, if you created a directory (same as folder) called "recommends," you could then create a subdirectory within the "recommends" directory called "covertlinks" and then upload the index.php file to the "covertlinks" directory.