Is It Neccesary To Cloak Affiliate Links ? & The Best Cloakers ?

[FARRI]

Hi I would like to find out if cloaking Affiliate links
Is it neccesary cloak them I was advised to ?.
Also if it is what are some of the best "link cloakers" out there ?.

Thanks Craig

[3Aces]

I'd like to know that too.....

[Sanity Check]

I confess I wasn't previously aware of this issue, but I did a little quick research. Here's what Google has to say about Affiliate links:

http://www.google.com/support/webmas...n&answer=76465

"Google believes that pure affiliate websites do not provide additional value for web users, especially if they are part of a program that distributes its content to several hundred affiliates. Because a search result could return multiple sites, all with the same content, they create a frustrating user experience."

When you read it, you realize that all they're really saying is that they don't want duplicate content. So cloaking would not only be dangerous (because search engines hate deception), but it also would do nothing to address the issue. The way to address the issue is to make your content, your descriptions of the products and the surrounding text, as unique and different from the source as possible.

[3Aces]

Originally Posted by Sanity Check

I confess I wasn't previously aware of this issue, but I did a little quick research. Here's what Google has to say about Affiliate links:

http://www.google.com/support/webmas...n&answer=76465

"Google believes that pure affiliate websites do not provide additional value for web users, especially if they are part of a program that distributes its content to several hundred affiliates. Because a search result could return multiple sites, all with the same content, they create a frustrating user experience."

When you read it, you realize that all they're really saying is that they don't want duplicate content. So cloaking would not only be dangerous (because search engines hate deception), but it also would do nothing to address the issue. The way to address the issue is to make your content, your descriptions of the products and the surrounding text, as unique and different from the source as possible.

Yes, the content needs to be compelling and unique, we know that, don't we? I mean, what does that have to do with link cloaking? Do cloaked links lower the importance of the article/site?

[Sanity Check]

Originally Posted by 3Aces

Yes, the content needs to be compelling and unique, we know that, don't we? I mean, what does that have to do with link cloaking? Do cloaked links lower the importance of the article/site?

Yes, I think it's more that cloaking pisses the search engines off because of the deception than anything else. So, they'll lower the site's score (and the scores of the pages that have the cloaked links).

I don't think there's anything particular about affiliate linking that bothers them where cloaking is concerned. They're two, separate issues.

[3Aces]

Originally Posted by Sanity Check

Yes, I think it's more that cloaking pisses the search engines off because of the deception than anything else. So, they'll lower the site's score (and the scores of the pages that have the cloaked links).

I don't think there's anything particular about affiliate linking that bothers them where cloaking is concerned. They're two, separate issues.

Okay, so in a nutshell, I understand that cloaking links (affiliate or otherwise) on one's own site is not such a great idea. Do URL shorteners like tinyurl fall under cloaking????

[Sanity Check]

Originally Posted by 3Aces

Okay, so in a nutshell, I understand that cloaking links (affiliate or otherwise) on one's own site is not such a great idea. Do URL shorteners like tinyurl fall under cloaking????

Cloaking is where a visitor to your site sees something different from what the search engine sees when it spiders your site. So the question becomes: if you link to a page using TinyURL, will a visitor to your site who clicks that link see the same page that Google sees when they spider that same link?

Having said that, there is certainly a degree of deception with a TinyURL link no matter whether the link shows the same page to both users and robots or not, so I would avoid using TinyURL at all on my web site.

[3Aces]

Originally Posted by Sanity Check

Cloaking is where a visitor to your site sees something different from what the search engine sees when it spiders your site. So the question becomes: if you link to a page using TinyURL, will a visitor to your site who clicks that link see the same page that Google sees when they spider that same link?

Having said that, there is certainly a degree of deception with a TinyURL link no matter whether the link shows the same page to both users and robots or not, so I would avoid using TinyURL at all on my web site.

Thanks for your kind advice I will keep this in mind while working on my affiliate sites.

[Sanity Check]

You're welcome!

[smallbus01]

From what I know is the cloaking links just adds spam for search engines which makes everything a lot harder. Yes, it may be a great short-term solution for increasing traffic but in the long it is just spam.