How many affiliate programs & networks have you participated in? Have you found it difficult to remember all of these ugly affiliate links? If your answer is yes, I think using affiliate link cloaking is necessary. But, is this really ethical to your readers?
This issue seems controversial as many bloggers support this while others are against to this approach. The opposite bloggers consider this a cheating way to their readers. However, it is not that serious if you have done this in transparent right way.
I myself have joined nearly 100 affiliate programs and networks and maybe more as I could not remember how many at the moment. Most of them are using different platforms that automatically create an ugly & long affiliate links which are identical. But, can you remember all of them when you need them? I guess it is a big challenge! That is why we use plugin or external services like bit.ly or Google Short Links services to ease our work.
Is this ethical to your readers who will click on your affiliate links? We can read all below to get your own answer:
Yes, it is ethical to your readers:
As you have a lot of affiliate links to remember so using external tools seems a MUST for most of internet marketers including me. However, you should be transparent to your readers by creating disclaimer page that tell your readers that all or part of your links are affiliate and clicking on those links will help you generate some commissions.
You can also create a disclosure page with all information you need to share with your readers especially your affiliate links. Many bloggers disclose at the end of each post where they are including affiliate links. But, it is not a smart way as it will take a long time to login each affiliate network to copy your affiliate links to paste on your article.
Signing up through your affiliate links will not increase price of the products that your readers order. It is not harmful to your readers, your advertisers and yourself. This should also be clear in your disclosure page, therefore, your readers are confident clicking or ordering when needed.
Another thing that you should know that several affiliate programs does not allow you cloaking their links. You have to put original links to protect your account. This is clearly mandated in their TOS page.
No, it is not ethical to your readers:
Many bloggers are money-mined and they try all methods & tricks to cheat their readers by using intended redirect without any disclosure. This could be not harmful to your readers in terms of money but ethically it is not transparent. Your readers will never trust you.
If you are looking around on the internet, there are a lot of reviews or emails appealing readers to sign up through their affiliate links. It is not a good way and that should be optional. If you write great reviews of good products, your readers are confidently proceeding to pay for it but never think that all reviews will convert well.
So, that is enough for you to answer yourself whether affiliate link cloaking is ethical or not. This can still be controversial now and then. However, you are the one who can make it ethical with transparent disclosure to inform your readers that they are using your affiliate links.
Any further ideas on this? I am happy to see more feedbacks and debates on this issue. It is really important to any affiliate marketers like you.
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{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Great article, I’m agree with you
Thanks @Nutatu for your comment
Yeah, I think link cloaking is ok for readers, the problem lies in the author. If he is a prestigious blogger, readers will not hesitate to click on his affiliate links without seeing addresses like I did on your old blog.
It depends friend, the problems rests with blogger’s mind and goal. If all affiliate links cloaking is unethical, so most of affiliate marketer fails. The good example is clickbank which all links are cloaked. Most of high profile blogger used this method. The most important thing you should consider is that you should provide quality contents that are useful to your readers. Further, you should be transparent in the disclaimers/disclosure page. It is ok then
as I said in the article
I always cloaking my affiliate links to help increase click rate and maximum my earning. It’s good way and there are no limit or prohibited to do that, why we don’t ?
The important thing is your readers’ trust friend! You can cheat them for the first time but they will never click on that kind of link or never come back. That is why we need transparent
Another great article from you.BWN I am not using affiliate links in my blog.Because my blog is just 6 months old.I’ll give a try after 1 year.
You should consider this as It can help you boost your commission
Nice article. I have an affiliate page and I use GoCodes to cloak the long and ugly links of some affiliate programs. Though I don’t use affiliate links on my posts so I really don’t have problems on that aspect.
Most bloggers and seasoned web surfers know a cloaked affiliate link when they see one. I do. The point of the matter is that I think it only depends on how you use your affiliate links, very much like how you reiterated on your post.
Thanks for sharing Tinh!
Yeah, transperancy is very important and our readers can trust us in a sustainable way not like one time and never
I use both gocodes and ninja affiliate plugin
Agree with the post.
Affiliate links need to be used in a good manner and which will also drive users and traffic to the post and blog.
Good post
You are right as cheating method will never survive for a long time
I think it is essential for one to have a disclaimer if he is using cloaked links. By the way great article
You are right. I am doing this sooner
Never try it before. But maybe will try it =)
You will love it soon
In the US, the FCC requires you to have a disclosure policy. I still haven’t taken a side on the cloaking issue. Personally I don’t really care if a link I click on is an affiliate or not. That won’t have any influence on what I do, so I guess I’m just not seeing what the big deal is.
I knew this and most of bloggers who have business in the US must comply with this. However, many international bloggers have not updated their disclosure policies. I am myself drafting this blog policy that covers this as I am sure in the future I will do business in or with US companies.
Clicking on affiliate links or not does not cause any harms to you and advertisers, just to make sure the blog owners are transparent to their readers
Thanks for your comment
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