Link Cloaking
- Thread starter aidan1980
- Start date
However the cloaking they are talking about is page cloaking whereby you serve up pages based on IP or useragent, or a combination of both.
The worry is though that Google's algo will get confused. It is always best to use a referral obfiscator anyhow, otherwise your shonky affiliates can grab your referral phrases etc.
The worry is though that Google's algo will get confused. It is always best to use a referral obfiscator anyhow, otherwise your shonky affiliates can grab your referral phrases etc.
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Do they not mean using something like this - http://eclipsecloaker.com/? Whereby it runs your links through a redirect?
I stuck it on a site that got dinged by G once because it was all aff links and within a few weeks it came back, whether it was the reason or not I don't know but it was the only change I made to the site.
I stuck it on a site that got dinged by G once because it was all aff links and within a few weeks it came back, whether it was the reason or not I don't know but it was the only change I made to the site.
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It seems to me that Google is gunning for people who earn their money from affiliate links without a thought for the chaos and hardship it is causing some people.
They seem to want webmasters to provide good quality content based sites without the opportunity to monetise them unless its via their own schemes.
Granted, some of it is warranted but atleast the same proportion again, is not in my opinion and this shouldnt have been rolled out without the algorithm being able to make the differentiation.
They seem to want webmasters to provide good quality content based sites without the opportunity to monetise them unless its via their own schemes.
Granted, some of it is warranted but atleast the same proportion again, is not in my opinion and this shouldnt have been rolled out without the algorithm being able to make the differentiation.
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Google want total control based on user expectancy. If it is a commercial product based search term, they want it to be on google products. Google bought double click a few years back don't forget, and it makes interesting reading how doubleclick affiliate sites have faired compared to others 
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I see a lot of direct affiliate link sites ranking well still. I think there is a little misjudgement between affiliate sites vs any other website. Every type of site is getting hit right now. Junk is junk and it will go at some point.
http://www.affiliatetechhelp.com/ultimate-link-cloaker/
Is a free version of eclipsecloaker.com by the look of it.
There is only so much one can do, but if you manage thousands of affiliate links on one website then you don't have much choice to 'cloak' it.
http://www.affiliatetechhelp.com/ultimate-link-cloaker/
Is a free version of eclipsecloaker.com by the look of it.
There is only so much one can do, but if you manage thousands of affiliate links on one website then you don't have much choice to 'cloak' it.
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Yes it's all quite mucky. When affiliates were trying to build niche sites that promoted an affiliate product through a well known affiliate program, it was thought/discovered that Google was penalizing websites that had majority outbound affiliate links, so in order to preserve the business model developers started redirecting spiders clicking their affiliate links to different locations and this became the start of cloaking.
There was also incidents of sending traffic ranked for a specific niche to non-related content and this harmed the overall browsing experience.
Still some choose to cloak. And many chose to mask links so they can incorporate link tracking into their practice (some link masking utulities such as my WP Traffic Tools provide for extensive tracking. )
Others masked because of people's prejudice for of monetization through affiliate links. Some people openly admit that they dissect affiliate links, and in order to disuide any negativiity that affiliate links might cause devlopers began masking links.
There's also the school of thought that a uniform link aesthetic looks better.
As for doorway pages, many people desipite panda and penguin will continue to use them because it brings in control to the developer about where he wants to send his traffic. In many cases, due to the imperfection of algo-based searching, traffic arrives on the wrong landers, or irrelevant traffic arrives while looking for something completely unrelated. In these cases if a developer has a good eye he can conditionally redirect these fellows to where they need to go, to monetize them or simply assist them .
For all these targeted grey hat practices there are respectable uses, and that's where it becomes a contention between the will of Google and the will of the individual.
There was also incidents of sending traffic ranked for a specific niche to non-related content and this harmed the overall browsing experience.
Still some choose to cloak. And many chose to mask links so they can incorporate link tracking into their practice (some link masking utulities such as my WP Traffic Tools provide for extensive tracking. )
Others masked because of people's prejudice for of monetization through affiliate links. Some people openly admit that they dissect affiliate links, and in order to disuide any negativiity that affiliate links might cause devlopers began masking links.
There's also the school of thought that a uniform link aesthetic looks better.
As for doorway pages, many people desipite panda and penguin will continue to use them because it brings in control to the developer about where he wants to send his traffic. In many cases, due to the imperfection of algo-based searching, traffic arrives on the wrong landers, or irrelevant traffic arrives while looking for something completely unrelated. In these cases if a developer has a good eye he can conditionally redirect these fellows to where they need to go, to monetize them or simply assist them .
For all these targeted grey hat practices there are respectable uses, and that's where it becomes a contention between the will of Google and the will of the individual.
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You're a bit late to the party on this one.
The problem was that Google was gunning for affiliates for years, so any obvious signs were considered flags to kill the site.
However, I think since Pandora normal "link cloaking" methods no longer work as planned, and that Google is much more able to tell the difference between a normal link and one with an aff id at the end, no matter how redirected.
While not killing the site directly, the way I see it, the more aff links above the fold on a page, the more likely Pandora will seek to minimise the visibility of that page.
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G
GNU
Indeed, its the same with people saying Google are targetting EMD's.
What people seem to overlook is the strong correlation between EMD affiliate sites and shoddy workmanship.
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That's actually what we're calling link masking. Link cloaking takes on a different meaning of offering a different location to one visitor compared to another. Cloak the Destination Mask the link. Semantically... the same thing... but as far as the industry goes that's how we have been terming it.
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G
gauravmultiplex
Cloaking affiliate links is the art of showing your visitors an internal link when they mouse over an affiliate link so that the visitor doesnt think they are leaving your site.
When they would do that they would be taken off of our site and to the third party affiliate company where they could fill out the form to request info.
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Google want total control based on user expectancy. If it is a commercial product based search term, they want it to be on google products. Google bought double click a few years back don't forget, and it makes interesting reading how doubleclick affiliate sites have faired compared to others
Welsh fella has it spot on. Google's only motivation is market dominance. They have already admitted to manipulating SERPS to benefit their own commercial ventures.
Every algorithm change is designed to increase Google revenue at the expense of its competitors... and if you are in Ecommerce that also means you!!
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