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Technology and tracking

Link cloaking

Also called link masking, pretty links, URL rewriting.

Short answer

Link cloaking means wrapping an affiliate link in a short, readable URL on the affiliate's own domain – for example /recommends/product-name – which redirects to the full tracking link. The aim is cleaner links and central control; the duty to disclose advertising applies unchanged.

Definition of Link cloaking.

An affiliate link usually consists of a tracking domain, a code and possibly some parameters – technically necessary, but long and unfamiliar to look at. Link cloaking replaces the visible link with a short URL on the affiliate's own domain, which sends the visitor on to the real tracking link via a 301 or 302 redirect. The click is recorded as normal, because the chain ends in the same place.

The gain is mostly practical. Readable links cause less hesitation before clicking and look better in content that gets shared. Most important is maintenance: if 40 articles point to /recommends/robot-vacuum and the product changes URL, the destination is fixed in one place – not in 40 articles. The affiliate can also count clicks on their own site before they reach the tracking link. Tools range from WordPress plugins such as Pretty Links to a hand-written redirect file.

The line is drawn at deception. Link cloaking changes how the URL looks – not the rules on advertising. Advertising disclosure rules (in Denmark, the Marketing Practices Act) apply however the link looks, and search engines still expect paid links to be marked with rel="sponsored". The word cloaking is also used for something entirely different and prohibited in SEO: serving one piece of content to search engines and another to people. The 2 share a name, not a risk.

Link cloaking vs. cloaking in SEO

AspectLink cloakingCloaking (SEO)
What is hiddenthe link's technical URLthe page's real content
Who sees whateveryone ends up at the same destinationsearch engines see different content from users
Statusaccepted practice, as long as the advertising is still discloseda breach of search engine guidelines
Consequencenone – if disclosure and tracking are intactmanual penalty or removal from the index

Link cloaking tidies up a URL – cloaking in the SEO sense deceives search engines and can cost the whole site its visibility.

How it goes wrong

  • 01

    The redirect drops parameters

    A redirect that throws away query parameters deletes sub-IDs on the way, for example – and with them the data that should show which placement earned the money. Test the whole chain with a click, and check that the click is recorded with the parameters you sent.

  • 02

    Clean URL, hidden advertising

    A short URL on your own domain does not remove the duty to disclose commercial links. Advertising disclosure is about the reader knowing the commercial intent before the click – not about how the URL looks.

  • 03

    Redirect chains that are too long

    Cloaked link to shortener to tracking link to store: every step adds latency and a place where the chain can break, and some platforms treat long redirect chains as a spam signal. Keep the chain to one hop – from your own domain straight to the tracking link.

At Affilyflow

Link cloaking in practice

Whatever URL the click comes through, what matters happens in the second of the click: Affilyflow locks the commission at the moment of the click – rate and type are copied to the click row – and the attribution window is locked at the same time and decided on our server, not in the browser. Known bots get no click registration and no attribution – including when the click comes through a cloaked link.

Frequently asked questions

Is link cloaking legal?

Yes – a redirect on your own domain is ordinary web technology. It only becomes unlawful if the clean URL is used to hide that the content is advertising; advertising disclosure rules apply whatever the link looks like. Also check the program terms, which may set requirements for how links may be presented.

Does link cloaking hurt my SEO?

No, redirects are standard on the web. Common practice is to mark visible affiliate links with rel="sponsored" and exclude the redirect folder – for example /recommends/ – in robots.txt, so search engines do not spend time on the intermediate step. It is content hidden from search engines that gets penalised – not clean URLs.

Does tracking still work when I cloak my links?

Yes, as long as the redirect forwards to the full tracking link with all parameters intact. Make a test click through the cloaked link and check afterwards that the click was recorded. If the redirect drops parameters such as the sub-ID, you lose the insight into which placement delivered the click.

What is the difference between link cloaking and a URL shortener?

A shortener such as bit.ly puts the link on a third party's domain; cloaking puts it on your own. Your own domain signals the sender, can be edited centrally and does not disappear if an external service shuts down or gets blocked by a platform.

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