What is Link Cloacking

[asad]

Does some body know about link cloaking. And how it effects seo...

[Business Attorney]

Link cloaking is simply disguising your outgoing links (usually with a php redirect) so that your user doesn't see some long link with an affiliate code when his mouse hovers over a link on your page.

Since it is an outgoing link, I don't see how it could have any effect on your seo.

[asad]

Ok, right. Question is why we use link cloacking instead of direct linking to affiliates sites, as almost all affiliates sites are using this technique.

[GekiDan]

Ok, right. Question is why we use link cloacking instead of direct linking to affiliates sites, as almost all affiliates sites are using this technique.

If we don't use link cloaking, people can remove your affiliate link and just go to the main site. This could lead to no commission earnings.

[Owen]

To track your commissions and clicks, they are using such technique.

Clocking is Good if done properly. Or else it will be considered as SPAM.

[asad]

To track your commissions and clicks, they are using such technique.

I donot think that it is used for tracking, (but can be used for this pupose). As if some one uses direct links these also be stored to track.

Clocking is Good if done properly.

Can you please share a real time example so that i can check which is done properly.

Or else it will be considered as SPAM.

Is it mean if some one uses direct affiliate link of an affiliate network like cj. As it is messy or encrypted to understand . And it is better if you explain it bit more.

[Owen]

Cloaking is the technique used to present different content, layout, functionality or headers (a completely different page or partial components of the page, known as Mosaic cloaking) to a search engine spider than to a user's Web browser

Ethical cloaking is not "black hat" however, in the past spammers have used methods to manipulate cloaking techniques, for clarity let's refer to it as cloaking-spam, to game the (Google)

Content / link Clocking is high risk. And some webmaster are not realizing this and cloaking URLs/ Contents.

Please refer http://support.google.com/webmasters...n&answer=66355

And http://www.bruceclay.com/newsletter/.../cloaking.html

[ownedbox]

To track your commissions and clicks, they are using such technique.

Clocking is Good if done properly. Or else it will be considered as SPAM.

I think it will just be spam if they put it everywhere. However if they just put it in their site, it won't be.

[asad]

Thanks for detail reply. Can you please check this page and let me know that cloaking is properly applied

http://www.couponscliff.com/get/karatejoes.com

and it is proper ethical cloaking.

Actually if you read my thread here for my problem what i am facing.

http://www.businessadviceforum.com/s...down-in-search

[band]

Google answer it: http://support.google.com/webmasters...n&answer=66355

Cloaking refers to the practice of presenting different content or URLs to users and search engines. Serving up different results based on user-agent may cause your site to be perceived as deceptive and removed from the Google index.

[Owen]

Thanks for detail reply. Can you please check this page and let me know that cloaking is properly applied

http://www.couponscliff.com/get/karatejoes.com

and it is proper ethical cloaking.

Actually if you read my thread here for my problem what i am facing.

http://www.businessadviceforum.com/s...down-in-search

Yeah, I have already read your thread and Affiliate Links doesn't hurt much because of its necessity. Only those who uses bunch of improper redirection and cloaking will get penalized / banned by Google.

For Ex: If you use direct a link to domain1.com and when user go to domain1.com which uses the following tag

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="2;url=http://domain2.com/"> to fool Search engines, then this will be considered as SPAM.


Hope you cleared what is Cloaking and where to use it wisely.


More info on Meta Refresh Tags can be found here.

[asad]

For Ex: If you use direct a link to domain1.com and when user go to domain1.com which uses the following tag

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="2;url=http://domain2.com/"> to fool Search engines, then this will be considered as SPAM.

Thanks for your this example. As i am using that in my redirect page. Let me change it.

[jimmygekko]

Agree with the other comments. We used link cloaking and have for years on affiliate links. These are only used on our outgoing links, and honestly we really only use it to hide the links from others who might otherwise realize they're an affiliate (lower CTR possibly) or replace our encrytped affiliate ID with theirs. It's not a critical item in my opinion but it's totally fine to do in this fashion (at least for outbound outlinks). Several good / easy Wordpress plugins to automate it for you too.

[asad]

Here is the technical aspects of link cloaking

http://wulffy.blogspot.com/2008/09/a...ng-part-i.html
http://wulffy.blogspot.com/2008/11/f...-cloaking.html
http://wulffy.blogspot.com/2008/11/c...-stuffing.html

it is a series with all pros and cons.. so beneficial for technical persons.

[merryscanlan]

Link Cloaking is the technical practice of hiding an actual URL through a link on the local domain, or a through a benign third party domain.