One big problem online for many affiliates is the simple fact that people are hijacking your affiliate commissions.
Are Your Affiliate Commissions Being Hijacked?
Maybe you thought that this type of behavior was only happening in the real world and not in cyberspace, however given the chance whether online or off unscrupulous people will take money and merchandise and it isn’t any different online right now than it is in the real world.
The real world shop merchants use locks and alarms to deter thieves from getting their hands on any products that they have not purchased.
Internet business owners and affiliates need to use some form anti-theft software or purchase membership software such as WishList Members to protect their sales.
Here are some WordPress plugins and services that you can use right now to protect your affiliate business and any affiliate commissions:
MaxBlogPress Affiliate Ninja WordPress Plugin
Affiliate Ninja has been created by MaxBlogPress and is a very powerful affiliate link cloaking plugin that will convert all your affiliate links in to more user-friendly format while tracking every click. Another feature is where you can turn any word on your WordPress blog into an affiliate link automatically. Read more here on Affiliate Ninja.
Pretty Links WordPress Plugin
With Pretty Links you can do many different things such as shrink, track and share any URL on the Internet right from your WordPress blog. This plugin also allows you to create short links that are on your own domain! As well as tracking each click on your URL and provides a full, detailed report of where the hit came from, the browser and so on…
There is a free version and Pro version, read more about Pretty Links.
WP Link Engine WordPress Plugin (No Longer Being Updated)
WP Link Engine is a very powerful WordPress plugin that can help you manage not only your affiliate links and stop your affiliate commissions from being hijacked, but you can also manage many other aspects of your site links using this plugin. This is only a very brief explanation there are many more features available at the WP Link Engine Website.
GoTryThis Hosted Affiliate Link Cloaker
Gotrythis is an affiliate link management program that allows you to track every aspect of your affiliate campaigns. Your links work from your own site and help to brand your business keeping you in control of all your links. It’s easy to use and can handle millions of clicks.
It also makes sure your links are working correctly on a daily basis, and has loads of cool abilities designed for marketers, like split-testing affiliate links and time or quantity limited scarcity links.
Is suitable for static HTML sites and WordPress blogs, read more about GoTryThis.
Below you are going to find information on what you should not use to protect your affiliate commissions and the reason why it is not longer suitable.
Understanding What Meta Refresh Is…
So what is a meta refresh, it is a simple piece of HTML code which automatically redirects your site visitor to another page (usually your affiliate URL). It provides a convenient way of presenting your affiliate links in any newsletters you might be sending. It has in the past help reduce commission bypassing and commission hijacking.
The attraction to using meta refreshes was that if merchants changed their affiliate links, you could change links on dozens of pages quickly and easily by altering only one file.
This is now also available in every affiliate cloaking program that we have listed above…
What You Should Not Use Meta Refresh To Protect Affiliate Commissions
One issue that you will encounter with using meta refresh is that all the search engines don’t like meta refreshes because they have frequently been used for unsavory purposes (black hat).
When we say unsavory we mean that this technique has been used as part of phishing attacks that actually confuse your visitor as to what website they are actually on.
For anyone that does decide that meta refresh is right for them even after reading why it is not then make sure every link you create is attributed with “No Follow”
What ever you choose to do to protect your affiliate commissions make sure it is suitable for your needs, and remember that many of the redirect options that you might come across online have been used to fool the search engines in the past, so do your research first before using any techniques on your site.
Be aware that affiliate commission and product theft is a big problem for many online businesses and you need to take the necessary steps to protect your affiliate commissions.
Everyone of the programs or services listed above are currently being used on one of our websites, maybe you have others that you would like to let us know about that you are using to protect your affiliate commissions… If so please let us know in the comment section below and we will be sure to check it out.
Hi Ron,
Could you elaborate on which of these tools you would recommend for two different groups:
1) Those who can not yet afford to buy tools and need a free solution.
2) The best solution for power affiliates or those who are working toward making serious money online.
Every blogger interested in monetizing will want to see this answer and I will share it with all those I know and across Social Networks.
Hi Gail…
Sure, the plugin that you can get if you don’t have a budget to mess around with would have to be Pretty Link (Lite Version) this is a free wordpress plugin that you can download and use. The only difference between the Pretty Link Pro version which retails for $37 for one site license and $97 for an unlimited site license and the lite version is you can automate all your affiliate link creation as well as auto tweet, even replace keywords in your blog with the pro version.
For the more advanced affiliate marketers I would have to suggest either of these two, Gotrythis or WPLink Engine both are very good affiliate cloaking programs.
Gotrythis is a hosted solution that costs $14.95 a month which allows every thing that the others do except, you get much more information from where the clicks are coming from as well as the amount of clicks daily, including a breakdown of your most popular links. What I particularly like about Gotrythis is having all your links in a main area no matter how many sites you have and being able to see if any links are not working, even being able to change the affiliate code with-in the links with out having to find the affiliate link with-in your website.
Wp Link Engine is not as effective in tracking as Gotrythis as you can only see the clicks and the affiliate link that received the click, but it allows you additional features where you can add links directly into you blog automatically (good for seo), which Gotrythis does not, you do this by simply going to the link management panel and adding the links you want (does not have to be affiliate links can be links to internal pages), which in most cases I use a link I created in Gotrythis if it is an affiliate link.
You also get the option to no follow and do follow, 301 and 302 redirects, you can also expire links only show links from certain countries or even from a particular search engine which makes this affiliate cloaking plugin very good for geo targeting.
As well as an option where you can split test your landing pages or affiliate offers simply by adding into the link creation admin a number of different links that you want to test and you can even specify the amount of times that each page is viewed by a percentage.
Both of these plugins are used in conjunction with each other on this site one to actually cloak the links and track, and the other to place those links throughout my post and pages automatically and geo targeted.
Hi, I still don’t understand, can you please explain what you mean with “people are hijacking your affiliate links and claiming your affiliate commission as there own”? If it is my affiliate link, then how can someone else make money with that? Any traffic they send to that link will be mine, no?
Hi Klaas
The first way, and one that seems to happen in the marketing niche is where the person reading the review that you have written on your site then goes to the vendors sales page likes the product and wants to buy. What happens is that many of these vendors are located in clickbank and advertise their affiliate program on the bottom of their sites. The person then simply joins the affiliate program and then uses their link to purchase the product leaving you without any payment for your efforts.
A more devious way is by using adware and spyware that has been installed on your computer without your knowledge. What happens is that your affiliate link does not change but what has happened is the person who is buying has had a cookie placed on their computer from some other source which then substitutes your affiliate ID with their own. It does not matter which product the person buys as each time the affiliate ID is substituted to the other person that installed the adware or spyware.
To combat this on Clickbank I always use the new hoplink structure instead of the old xxxx.hop.clickbank.net which most vendors have on their sites. Simply go to clickbank and find the vendor and get the hoplink from the Clickbank site not the vendor page. You can always go back to the vendors page to get banners and emails but make sure you use the new hoplink not the old one.
Thanks for your explanation. Now I understand what you mean with hijacking links.
However, I don’t agree. I mean IF people don’t want that I receive an affiliate commission when they already have decided to purchase a particular product, then so be it.
As far as I know you cannot use your own affiliate link to purchase items with. Well you can, but you won’t receive the commission, so that argument is out.
What I mostly do with affilate links (and I only have a few to start with) is to “mask” them with my own URL-Shortener.
Again, if people want to buy without me getting any kickbacks, then they can go to the site themselves. And regarding clickbank, if they want to go through the trouble of discovering the true link behind it, then go ahead and make your life complicated. I don’t see this as “claiming your affiliate commission as their own”…
Hi Klaas unless the vendor specifically states that you can not earn a commission from purchasing a product through your affiliate link then you will be paid. As for clickbank what many of these hijackers don’t realize is that if you don’t keep making sales and earning commissions overtime clickbank will start to deduct fees from your account as it is inactive.
The most dangerous one is the adware or spyware way of doing this where you have absolutely no control over the outcome as the hijackers affiliate link has already been embedded onto the purchasers computer.
And you are right Klaas there is no way to force a person to purchase through one of your affiliate links and you should not make them, however again the purchaser does not have any choices at all when the code is already embedded in their computer system.
Personally I’m starting to avoid clickbank products and working with health networks who provide links that shouldn’t be able to be bypassed or with vendors who pay affiliates direct via paypal. I do have the pretty links plugin but I’m not convinced that’s foolproof either.
BTW your commentluv gives this msg: “Error. Parsing JSON Request failed. error! not authorized (try doing a hard refresh of the page ctrl + F5)” and no amount of hard refresh changes that.
Hi Jonathon
Yes I would have to agree with you on that, my preference for a good affiliate network is ShareAsale really easy to work with and good support. As for protecting your affiliate links I have and still do use Gotrythis it is the best I have found, however it will cost you $14.95 a month for the hosted version but you can have this on as many domains as you like.
My next preference would have to be MaxBlogPress Affiliate Ninja as I use that on a few of my WordPress blogs as well.
Had a look at the error you received tested it out on another computer with no problem, however your comment did end up in my spam folder so maybe that was the issue.