Is Cloaking Affiliate Links Bad for SEO?

For the past few years, I have spent a lot of time in creating a niche site, doing SEO, and affiliate marketing. I’ll share everything you need to know about the effect of cloaked affiliate links on SEO.

How Google handles it?

Okay, the first thing we need to know is how Google handles cloaked affiliate links. In the era of ChatGPT, they still rule the world when it comes to search with 89% market share. So we can’t ignore it. I can’t.

So here is what google has to say about cloaking affiliate links.

Google does not hate affiliate link cloaking. What it doesn’t like is, using link cloaking for manipulating users and search engines.

What should you do?

You should transparently say this is an affiliate link or such links are used in this site, so disclosure is very important. This is for users.

Now for search engines, you should use link attributes such as “nofollow” or “sponsored” while creating those cloaked affiliate links.

In simple words, if you do these two things right, your website SEO will not get hurt and the rankings won’t be affected.

See what John Mueller from Google says about affiliate links.

He actually said, “There’s no need to use any weird automatic JavaScript, onclick handling, or cloaking to hide these (affiliate links).”

If its not required, then why do people cloak their affiliate links?

Why?

Because, affiliate marketers genuinely use it to improve the trust factor and user experience. There are more benefits to it which I’ll cover in the next section.

Another thing that makes me confidently believe in this is the fact that almost all top bloggers are actually cloaking their affiliate links. I couldn’t find a single direct affiliate link in their blog posts.

Check out these Google instructions to better understand what you should and should not do with links in your website.

Benefits of Proper Link Cloaking

1. User Experience

Clean looking cloaked links are easier to remember, copy-paste, share on social media, etc for the users. It improves the trust factor and reduces the number of readers who will think “Is it safe to click on this link?”.

2. Protection for your Commission

When you cloak your affiliate links, your unique affiliate ID for the product won’t be visible to everyone. So this makes harder for others to spot and steal your affiliate IDs and eventually helps in protecting your hard earned money.

3. Easy Central Management

You can manage all your affiliate links at one place with a link cloaking tool.

And the best part is, if your affiliate link changes for a product because of merchant’s affiliate program transition to another platform, you can easily switch to the new link by changing the target URL for the cloaked link.

You don’t need to change links in all the places where you have previously used it.

4. Improved Analytics

The best thing about cloaking affiliate links is you can gain real data from it. You can track link clicks, device type, country, and so much more.

Primarily I find it useful to monitor click patterns and track which products are getting the most interest from my audience.

5. Brand Control

Instead of using spammy looking links, you get a nice and clean URL with your own domain name. This can increase your click-through rates because people already trust your website.

Best Practices for SEO-Friendly Link Cloaking

After learning the hard way, I realized there’s a “right” way to cloak affiliate links. Here are some of the best practices I’ve picked up over the years:

1. Use Proper Tools: Cloaking affiliate links manually is a headache, and it can lead to mistakes. Tools like Pretty Links or BetterLinks are lifesavers if you use WordPress. They let you easily cloak links, setup proper redirects, and even track clicks.

2. Add Nofollow Tags: Like I mentioned earlier, always use rel="nofollow" on affiliate links. This tells search engines like Google not to pass any authority to those sites. It’s a simple step that can save you from penalties.

3. Be Transparent: Always disclose your affiliate links. Not only is it required by the FTC, but it also builds trust with your audience. I usually add a quick disclaimer at the top of my posts letting readers know that some of the links are affiliate links.

4. Don’t Overdo It: Cloak your affiliate links when it makes sense, but don’t cloak every single link on your site. Google could see that as shady behavior if you go overboard. It’s all about balance.

5. Keep redirect chains minimal: Never do it like this: Bitly → Your Cloaked Link → Affiliate network link → Product page. Each redirect adds load time which is not good. Keep it simple.

Legal Disclosure Considerations

If I have learnt something about google in these years, it is that Google loves your content when you are authentic and follow the rules and regulations properly.

There’s this thing called Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requirement and we all need to do fulfill it.

The Federal Trade Commission requires clear disclosure of affiliate relationships in your content.

I usually put this disclosure at top of the blog posts.

The rule is user should not have to scroll in a web page to see the disclosure. So you can add it even in the sidebar.

Final Thoughts: Is Cloaking Affiliate Links Bad for SEO?

After working with my affiliate site for years, I can confidently say that link cloaking, when done right, is actually beneficial for both SEO and user experience. The key is implementing it properly and being transparent about your affiliate relationships.

Want to get started with proper link cloaking? Here’s what I recommend:

1. Choose a reliable cloaking plugin/method. I prefer to use BetterLinks Pro for my WordPress sites.
2. Set up proper redirects.
3. Create a consistent URL structure for cloaking links.
4. Add clear affiliate disclosures.
5. Monitor your redirects and fix any issues promptly.

Remember, the goal isn’t to deceive anyone. The purpose of link cloaking is to create a better experience for your users while protecting your commissions. Do it right, and both your visitors and search engines will thank you!