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Cloaking Affiliate Links

June 10, 2007 by Shawn Collins

Q: I was searching Google and found your tip on camouflaging an affiliate link. I loved it, but I’m wondering if it causes new problems. If I included it in a review I submitted to GoArticles, would that link stay camouflaged, or would something go wrong in the process?

Shawn CollinsA: I’m not sure how the Terms of Service might vary for any given content distribution service, but I submit content to EzineArticles.com, and here is their policy:

You declare that you will not send in any articles with direct affiliate links in them. We reject articles with direct affiliate links. It is OK, however, forward/redirect to an affiliate link from the top-level of a domain name you own. For example, it is permissible to forward to an affiliate link from:

http://your-company-name.com/

…but it would not be permissible to forward to an affiliate link from:

http://your-company-name.com/page.html
http://your-company-name.com/subdirectory/
http://your-company-name.com/subdirectory/page.html

This is one of our many article quality standards.

Further, I’m not sure that the code in my tip would be permitted regardless, as the article service might not want to spread that sort of functionality in the content they distribute.

Assuming you are permitted to use links in your articles, I would suggest using .htaccess redirects to clean up the links and keep them on your domain.

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