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Cloaking Aff Links

Bonusgeek asked 4 years ago
Ok, after doing some reading today I have figured out how to point the affiliate link to an html page and then redirect that page to the casino with my affiliate link.

One of the questions I have is google and other search engines clearly say cloaking is against the rules, so doing what I have described above, would that constitute cloaking and if so could a competitor turn me in for breaking the guide lines. I know most of the big sites cloak their affiliate links so I am pretty sure this is not against any rules but I would just like clarification for my own peace of mind before I take the time to do it.

Also, there are many different ways to cloak your link, is the method I described here one of the best ways.

Also I have read that doing it this way helps keep my pr within my site and if the method I am talking about is in fact a good way to do it, then to take it a step further should I put a link back to my homepage from the redirected page.

I know a lot of these questions are elemantary for some, but it takes it a while for it to sink in with me. Thanks.

8 Answers
Engineer answered 4 years ago
Bonusgeek wrote:
so doing what I have described above, would that constitute cloaking

No, that is not cloaking. Cloaking is where you show the search engines a page that is different from what your human visitors see. Example — You might show human visitors a trashy 888 landing page, while showing the search engines a keyword-rich page of stolen, scraped content.

What you are doing with your links is fine; this is how many people track the number of clicks on each link. There are multiple ways to do this; using a 301 redirect is a good, safe method. (That is what I use).

Bonusgeek answered 4 years ago
Thanks for the clarification Dave.

arnoldpalmer answered 4 years ago
I;ve been trying to set this up as well. I’ve got html pages set up with a 301 redirect on them and that all seems to work fine.

The trouble i’m having is that it doesn’t register the page as being viewed in statcounter. I think the redirect is taking effect before the statcounter code kicks in to count the hit? Is there any way to show these as half the reason i wanted to set the redirect pages up was to count my exit links.

Cheers

Arn

Bonusgeek answered 4 years ago
I wish I could help ya Arnold.

Webzcas answered 4 years ago
arnoldpalmer wrote:
I;ve been trying to set this up as well. I’ve got html pages set up with a 301 redirect on them and that all seems to work fine.

The trouble i’m having is that it doesn’t register the page as being viewed in statcounter. I think the redirect is taking effect before the statcounter code kicks in to count the hit? Is there any way to show these as half the reason i wanted to set the redirect pages up was to count my exit links.

Cheers

Arn

Send Simmo! a PM, he is a whizz at doing stuff like this.

Maxfalcon1 answered 4 years ago
Quote:
You might show human visitors a trashy 888 landing page, while showing the search engines a keyword-rich page of stolen, scraped content.

<span title=” title=”” class=”bbcode_smiley” /> LOL – I’ve really laughed a lot…

lots0 answered 4 years ago
Its not cloaking, but wether or not the search engines will think its alright will depend on how you do the redirect.

google has a hardon for what they call “sneaky” redirects.

Make sure that the user is aware that they are being redirected to a new page.

GamblingWages answered 4 years ago
lots0 wrote:
Its not cloaking, but wether or not the search engines will think its alright will depend on how you do the redirect.

google has a hardon for what they call “sneaky” redirects.

Make sure that the user is aware that they are being redirected to a new page.

To ensure your inocent redirect is not taken as something else, make sure you use a 301 permanent redirect as oposed to a 302 (temporarily). You may also want to make that page unaccesable to SEs, you can do this by blocking them through your robots.txt.