Raw affiliate links are long, ugly, and full of tracking parameters that scream "I earn a commission if you click this." Cloaking turns them into clean, branded URLs that get more clicks and are easier to manage.
What Is Affiliate Link Cloaking?
Affiliate link cloaking is the practice of redirecting a branded short URL to an affiliate tracking URL. Instead of sharing:
https://partner.example.com/click?affiliateId=xyz123&campaign=abc&source=blogYou share:
https://yoursite.com/recommends/exampleBoth URLs send the visitor to the same destination with the same affiliate tracking — but the cloaked version looks cleaner, builds trust, and is easier to update if the affiliate program changes its URLs.
Why Cloak Affiliate Links?
- Higher click-through rates — Clean URLs get more clicks. Visitors are less likely to hesitate or remove your affiliate tag.
- Easier management — If an affiliate program changes its URL structure, update one redirect instead of every post that contains the link.
- Better analytics — Track exactly which page or placement drives clicks to each affiliate link.
- Prevent commission theft — Some users manually remove affiliate parameters from URLs. A cloaked redirect prevents this.
Cloaking vs Hiding vs Shortening
- Cloaking — Creates a clean redirect URL on your own domain. Best for affiliates.
- Shortening — Creates a short URL on a third-party domain (bit.ly, tinyurl). Less branded, dependent on the shortener staying online.
- No-referrer redirect — Strips the referrer header so the destination site cannot see where the click came from. Use Anonymiz Affiliate Link Cloaker for this.
FTC Disclosure Requirements
Important: cloaking does NOT remove your obligation to disclose affiliate relationships. The FTC requires clear disclosure near any affiliate link. Cloaking the URL does not hide the commercial nature of the relationship — you must still label affiliate links with "contains affiliate links" or similar language.
How to Cloak Affiliate Links
Use Anonymiz Affiliate Link Cloaker to create clean redirect links that also strip the referrer header. Free, no account needed.
