Making certain you keep your affiliate commissions from being stolen

Hey all,

Time and time again I’ve seen it – pain!  Agony!  Undying angst that far surpasses anything mere mortal teenagers could devise as they morosely scribble on their left hand – "Nobody understands me except for my pink fluffly bunny rabbit Fang!"

You know that about which I’m talking – people who dare to write in…..in…….in……bad grammar!  (insert ominous music tone here)

Now, bad grammar is something up with which I shall not put – you have no idea of the utter joy I receive by correcting my karate senseis on their various and sundry commands to the class should they (by mistake of course!) speak, like, real bad-like.  Okay, true, that would be horribly disrespectful, so I make certain no other students hear my gems of For-Your-Own-Goodness. 

Luckily, some people online has bought clues about the sheer poetic beauty of talking betterer than the rest of humanity!  for example, check out this great passage:

Today’s episode brings us some yet more exciting action. Our story opens with me on my bicycle, huffing and puffing past the Acorn Woodpecker’s usual haunts. I made the mistake of glancing off to the right and, seeing activity, was therefore doomed to stop my ride and start taking pics……

By dint of patience and lots of character-building pics, I managed to get a couple that showed what I was hoping for. Or "Showed that for which I was hoping," for those of you who dislike dangling participles. ….MORE….

(btw, I *highly* recommend you check out the site (Nicky 510) from which that morsel of photographic brilliance arose – it was from the Daily Dose (free newsletter signup) and the image provided was truly a wonder to behold.  The photography is gorgeous).

But I digress.  Anywhos, I was discussing the sheer unmitigated terror of….

No wait a sec, that wasn’t the focus of my article…….hang on, let me refresh my coffee and see if some caffeine can assist in firing up the morning neurons.

(tick tock tick tock tick tock)

Ah yes!  That was it!  

Let’s talk money.

More importantly, your money.

More importantly, your money that is rightfully yours…but stolen because you neglected to cloak your affiliate link.

Let’s be serious here, folks.  If I’m happily flapping about on the Internet and visiting this site or that and come across a link that reads

www.1shoppingcart.com/BigBlatantAffiliateLinkNumberHere

Do you really think I’m going to click on it without seeing if I can use my own affiliate link ID?

Well….actually, I probably wouldn’t do that – if someone put out the effort to drive traffic to a site, I generally believe they deserve the commission.  But with the economy as miserable as it is today….it’s just common sense that people will try to get things cheaper whenever possible.

Do yourself a favor and CLOAK your links!  It’s a very easy simple thing to do – I wrote about that over at How to easily cloak your Clickbank and other affiliate links for free.   You can even go one step further and simply dash up a cute little php script on your own server like so:

Step 1.)  Let’s say that your affiliate link is

http://www.virtual-coach.com/click.php?p=1&a=1

It’s a lovely link, a wondrous link, a link that inspires awe and devotion!

But it’s certainly unwieldy, don’t you think?

Thus….

Step 2.)  On your server, create a nifty php file "21D.php" like so:

<?php
$URL="http://www.virtual-coach.com/click.php?p=1&a=1";
header ("Location: $URL");
?>

And finally:

Step 3.)  Embed that link in your posts or sites or what have you.

Think about it.  What looks more clickable:

http://www.virtual-coach.com/click.php?p=1&a=1

or

http://www.barbaraling.com/21D.php

Hmmm? 

Metnhinks the answer is obvious.

Remember…it’s just plain good business sense to try and ensure you get what you deserve with regards to your affiliate marketing.  Don’t be complacent – be smart instead.

Your 2009 income will thank you for it.

Enjoy,

Barbara

ps – speaking about affiliate marketing, have you seen:

Fatal error: Class ‘expKrc’ not found in /home/ling5/domains/barbaraling.com/public_html/php-bin/eBay_cls.php on line 138

FREE GIFT! My 100% Affiliate Commissions Secrets!

"Hey there, thanks so much for stopping by! If you enjoyed this article, please do feel free to tell your friends about it or use those nifty neato social icons above to spread the word. I love sharing great info, and would really appreciate it...thanks!"
-- Barbara Ling