I promised after my last post to give an update on the affiliate link cloaking complications caused by certain browsers not accepting cookies from “third party sites”. In simple terms, if you are using frames to cloak your affiliate links, Internet Explorer may well not accept your cookie if the domain in the browser address bar is different from the URL where the cookie originates. On standard privacy settings, which most users probably won’t ever change, this should supposedly only apply to third party cookies that do not have a compact privacy policy but in practice it doesn’t always seem to be the case.

After pretty exhaustive testing, I’ve found a couple of things that work in the majority of cases – however, the problem still means that after cloaking your links you should check every one to make sure your cookie is indeed being recorded correctly.

1) The stealth cloaking option in Samurai Stealth Cloaker still delivers the goods and will normally set your cookie in IE. Check each link to make sure – I have tested using Clickbank and Commission Junction links and most were fine. However, occasionally a vendor’s link may throw things off for some unknown reason.

UPDATE: As of September 2011 SSC seems to have gone offline. We don’t know if this is permanent or not but if the links do not work for you and you are looking for a WordPress solution the Eclipse Advanced Link Cloaker may be a good alternative and comes in the form of a plugin or you could use the excellent Ninja Affiliate which has been around longer, costs less, is extremely effective and packs some great features.

If you would prefer a non WordPress alternative at a very low cost, take a look here at Affiliate Link Defender which you can pick up for less than six bucks.

If you use use the masked frame option in the script to cloak anything be sure to check very carefully in as many browsers as you can because you may possibly lose commissions from anyone using IE6 and above – the vast majority of internet users.

2) There is some software available that promises not only to ensure your affiliate cookies are correctly tracked in Internet Explorer and all other browsers but also to protect you entirely from link hijacking by parasite software installed on your visitors’ computers.

I’ve been trying this on Clickbank and Commission Junction links and in the vast majority of cases it works fine. I’ve also used it with some less well known networks without problems. However, once again, I would recommend users check their links to make sure. Keep reading for a review of the software below.

I have also been trying out cloaked links for programs using scripts such as Rapid Action Profits and the 7DollarSecret – these are affiliate programs that pay affiliates instantly, normally via PayPal and it appears that the construction of these links makes them a little trickier to cloak correctly. If you are promoting anything using either script, I would advise you to make doubly sure that you are going to receive credit and you may have to settle for using the raw link or a simple PHP redirect in some cases.

Review Of Covert Links – Affiliate Link Cloaking Software

CovertLinks is one of the latest cloaking solutions on the market from Perry Wolf and, credit where credit is due, it was his sales page that woke me up to the whole Internet Explorer cookie issues, which will teach me to keep up with the affiliate forums a little more as it has been discussed at length in several places.

However, CovertLinks goes a fair bit further than just solving that one problem and Perry claims that his methods of cloaking can also prevent parasite software from hijacking your links too. He explains how all this works, in layman’s terms on his website, but here is a summary of what CovertLinks can do – there are two methods available to you as an affiliate, HTML and PHP versions:

a) The CovertLinks HTML Version: An Advanced Framing Technology is used that displays the Merchant’s sales page on your    website in a Frame but uses additional methods to ensure your cookies get set.

b) The CovertLinks PHP Version : The PHP version uses an advanced method to “pull” the content from the merchant’s page and display it on your website without using frames. This ensures your affiliate cookies are set and provides additional security against Parasite Software.

Full explanations can be found on Perry’s website and even if you’re not convinced that you should be cloaking your links it’s worth reading.

So far my tests of the software have proved that it does exactly what it says on the tin, at least most of the time. Once again, it is not perfect and seems to struggle when dealing with more unusual affiliate links. If you are working mainly with the well known networks, you should not have too many issues. When faced with certain types of affiliate links though, just like SSC, CovertLinks is not immune from the occasional “brain fart”, or perhaps, more accurately, the links themselves are not.

Update : after a bit of back and forth with the man behind the software it seems to me, despite my non technical background, that the software can fail to pass cookies in IE. I have now tried it with all manner of affiliate links and with the default privacy settings in IE8 (based on the assumption that most users will not alter these) and CovertLinks does not always manage to get the cookies set. Reverting to a straight redirect solves the problem, but this means having to do that manually or with other software. So, here I am, using both CovertLinks and Samurai Stealth Cloaker in tandem and testing every single cloaked link I create.

This is not ideal obviously and it’s time consuming. I’m hoping that my feedback and examples of the software’s shortcomings will enable the developer to address them and remedy them in future releases, even though I got the impression that my suggestions that there were some issues didn’t go over that well.

There is one other aspect of it that I don’t like very much and that is the appearance in the title bar of the browser of “Covert Links – Show Page http://www.ehateverthelinkis.com” This doesn’t appear to happen on all links so I’m unsure if it’s intentional or if it’s a bug. IF it is intentional it is a rather silly flaw in my opinion – after going to such lengths to produce a secure link cloaking software you give the game away for the sake of advertising in the browser’s title bar? This particular issue really needs attention because, intentional or not,  it spoils an otherwise competent and good value product.

Now, as far as the protection from parasite software goes, I’m taking Perry at his word because I’m not technical enough to understand how such nasty trickery works. I’m not sure that SSC provides such protection, it doesn’t claim to, but that’s not to say it doesn’t when using the stealth mode.

I’m keen to use CovertLinks, as it does solve, at least in the main, a couple of pretty serious problems for affiliates. Sadly, unlike SSC, which is a script that resides on your server, CovertLinks is software that runs on your computer. I say sadly because in terms of ease of us, convenience and tracking, it is far less user friendly than the script. Each cloaked link has to be created using the software’s interface – basically a box filling and checkbox ticking exercise – which is pretty simple. You will then need to upload the resulting file to your server, either via FTP or through your hosting control panel.

This is a gripe that I probably wouldn’t have if I had never used SSC – it’s not really a big deal, it just seems laborious because with SSC you can create your links far more quickly and keep track of them far more easily using the simple admin panel which also gives you basic tracking facilities.

Having said that, CovertLinks certainly seems to be a more up to date method of cloaking and the way things on the web progress, it’s a good idea to keep up with current technology. If parasite software is as big a problem as some people are claiming, anything that can beat it is a good thing in my book.

The good news about CovertLinks is that it is pretty cheap, certainly compared to many other cloaking solutions, many of which are actually pretty useless in any case. As to whether it is better than SSC or equally as good, both methods have their advantages and disadvantages and choosing between the two is going to come down to what each individual considers more important to them, and perhaps budget. In terms of price, CovertLinks is a clear winner, but when weighing up the differences, SSC might still edge it out for some users. The choice, as they say, is yours.

TCH