Link Cloaking
Hiding an ugly affiliate URL behind a clean short link — for branding and protection.
Link cloaking means: you hide a long, messy affiliate URL behind a clean short link. Instead of amazon.com/dp/B08XYZ?tag=affiliate-20 your readers see tips.yourblog.com/camera.
Benefits: cleaner appearance, higher click-through rates (Bitly and ClickMagick both report ~30% lift), protection against affiliate hijacking (someone replacing your affiliate code), and flexibility — when you switch from Amazon Associates to ShareASale, you only update the destination, not every old post.
Important distinction: affiliate cloaking (clean URLs) is legitimate and welcomed by virtually every affiliate network. SEO cloaking (showing different content to Googlebot than to humans) violates Google's Webmaster Guidelines and can earn you a manual penalty.
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Cloak affiliate links
How Affiliate Marketing use this term
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