How to Cloak Affiliate Links in WordPress

How to Cloak Affiliate Links in WordPress

Do you want to learn how to cloak affiliate links in WordPress?

When researching affiliate marketing strategies, you may come across link cloaking. Cloaking links is actually a common and most useful practice in terms of affiliate marketing.

Today, I’ll teach you a step-by-step guide on how to cloak affiliate links in WordPress websites.

What is Affiliate Link Cloaking?

Link cloaking is a widely used affiliate marketing strategy. It is the process of disguising or hiding the affiliate link URL provided by an affiliate program by using a redirect link. It is a simple and effective way to make the links attractive and more user-friendly.

Here’s an example of a normal affiliate link versus a cloaked affiliate link:

Normal Affiliate Link: https://example.com/products/?product_id=123&affiliate_id

Cloaked Affiliate Link: https://example.com/affiliate-product-name.php

Why Should You Cloak Affiliate Links?

The affiliate links are complex, lengthy and ugly. Users are reluctant to share it and thus results in fewer sales or conversions. Link cloaking can help you solve this by making the affiliate link shorter, clean and shareable. 

The major advantage of using link cloaking is that you can protect your valuable affiliate commissions from hijacking scripts. With link cloaking, you can easily manage affiliate links. Cloaking also enables you to create and use their own custom links, which redirect users to their affiliate products. 

Cloak Affiliate Links in WordPress

You can easily cloak affiliate links in WordPress by using any free or premium third-party plugin. For the sake of this tutorial, I’ll use a free version of the ThirstyAffiliates plugin. 

install ThirstyAffiliates
  • First of all, install the free ThirstyAffiliates plugin, from your dashboard under Plugins > Add New. 
  • Navigate to ThirstyAffiliates → New Affiliate Link from the dashboard left side panel. 
Cloak Affiliate Links in WordPress
  • Add the title on the box. Then, add the destination affiliate link under the Destination URL box.
  • Also, you can create the Link Categories to organize the links. Then use the Link Options box to add no follow or other configuration to the link.
Cloak Affiliate Links in WordPress
  • Next, save the link. 
  • Once you do that, you’ll see a Cloaked URL option appear on the screen. This slug is the cloaked link. You can also manually edit the slug. 
  • Final step is to insert the cloaked affiliate link into your content.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Should I add no follow to affiliate links?

Yes, it’s good SEO practice to add no follow to Affiliate links. 

Can I add affiliate links without a plugin?

Yes, you can manually add affiliate links by redirecting them via .htaccess.

Final Thoughts

Hence, this is our detailed guide on how to cloak affiliate links in WordPress. I hope you find this post helpful to manage affiliate links on your site. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get more WordPress tips. 

Let us know if you’ve any questions regarding cloaking affiliate links in WordPress sites.

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