(c)2002 Jim Edwards - all right reserved
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Let's face the facts!
Almost everyone online today is looking to make or save a buck
any way they can. In the past, most of the people who clicked on
your affiliate links used to purchase without a second
thought... but, as times get tougher online, it seems a growing
number won't! As money gets tighter and product prices rise,
people who know how to manipulate the system will sometimes
replace your affiliate ID with theirs and "hijack" your
commissions. Here's an example: Let's say your affiliate link is
www.ebookaboutcats.com/?live-well. Say the highjacker uses the
affiliate ID of captain-hook. What he would do is replace your
ID with his, and buy from the URL
www.ebookaboutcats.com/?captain-hook. The bottom line: the
hijacker puts your money in his pocket. In other cases, they
can't stand the thought of you "making money off them" so they
bypass you by simply chopping off the end of your affiliate link
that contains your ID. Instead of buying from
www.ebookaboutcats.com/?live-well, the bypasser will simply
"chop off" the affiliate ID at the end and simply buy from the
plain URL www.ebookaboutcats.com --without your affiliate ID
attached! Either way, you get cheated out of your rightful
commission. To help you fight these affiliate link hijackers I
offer a couple of my best (proven and battle tested) tips, which
will at least confuse these "hijackers" and, in many cases,
often defeat and disarm them completely. Side Note: If someone
really, really wants to steal your affiliate commission, they
will find a way; however, most hijackers are just opportunists
who will only act if they see an easy buck. The first and
cheapest way to hide your affiliate links is using a javascript
redirect page. This is where you hide your affiliate link in a
page on your site using a simple javascript that redirects
people to your affiliate link. It works great not to expose your
"naked" affiliate link in your actual email messages and ezine
ads, but, once people get redirected to the true affiliate link,
many affiliate programs expose the affiliate link along with
your ID in the browser address bar. Here's an example of a
redirect script in action. Click =>
http://www.ebookfire.com/esejs.html Notice how the link takes
you to a page where you can see my affiliate ID, ebookfire, in
your web browser's address bar. Like it or not, someone can
replace my ID with theirs and "hijack" the commission... but at
least the redirect script keeps them from immediately seeing my
"naked" affiliate link
(http://hop.clickbank.net/?ebookfire/ebksecrets) when I publish
it in my newsletter, email, or on my website. You can get free
redirect scripts just about anywhere you find free javascripts.
Here is the script I use http://www.ebookfire.com/jrs.shtml. A
better way to hide your affiliate links is using a zero-frame or
"invisible" frame that masks the affiliate link by making it
appear you are sending people to a page on your website. In
reality, you are actually sending them to your affiliate link.
This is the technique used by those "sub-domain" redirect
services that provide you with urls like
http://ese.ebookfire.net. While giving someone a link like that
is much better than using a "naked" affiliate link such as
http://hop.clickbank.net/?ebookfire/ebksecrets, there is a
problem. As soon as someone does a "view >> source" in their web
browser they'll see your naked affiliate link plain as day...
which instantly blows your cover! Currently the best way to
protect your affiliate commissions from ruthless hijackers is to
use a combination of a zero- frame page along with URL
encryption. This involves sending someone to URL that looks like
a page on your site, but actually pulls in your affiliate link
like those "sub- domain" services. However, there's one critical
difference... If someone does a "view >> source" in their
browser, you have added protection in that all they will see is
a jumble of computer code instead of your naked affiliate link.
Check out this example of a zero-frame with URL encryption in
action. Click => http://www.ebookfire.com/ese.html Side Note:
Beware of cloaking scripts that use javascript to mask your
affiliate link because they could malfunction in some web
browsers. Here's the bottom line: if you are going to sell
through other people's affiliate programs, never send a "naked"
affiliate link... you're just asking for people to hijack or
bypass you if you do. If you want to get paid more often through
your affiliate links, make sure it's not obvious you're
referring people to an affiliate link. If they can't easily see
how to hijack or bypass your link, a lot more people who would
have taken the money out of your pocket will just go ahead and
buy through your link - which is, after all, the whole point!
:-) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Simple "Traffic
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About the author:
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the
co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use
fr^e articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to
your website or affiliate links...
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