Protecting Yourself From Affiliate Link Thieves

Stephani Richardson

So, you have worked really hard to build a fabulous affiliate
site. You took the time to add your keywords and relevant
information about the products. Your pages load quickly, and
your site is even listed in the search engines for specified
terms. You look at your stats, and you see a regular flow of
traffic coming into your site. You get really excited! You log
in to your affiliate program manager, and.... WHAMO! You have
very few commissions from sales, and your click-throughs are
extremely low. Suddenly, you are asking yourself, "what the heck
happened here??" The answer... You might possibly be the victim
of affiliate link hijacking!

In this revolving world of the Internet, we are constantly being
bombarded by spammers, spyware, viruses, and hackers. Now, we
have to worry about link hijackers stealing commissions that are
rightfully ours. So, what is link hijacking and how do you
prevent it?

In the simplest terms, link hijacking occurs when someone
replaces their affiliate ID with yours. The result? They get the
commission instead of you. You did all that work, but someone
else is getting paid? Yes! You may be wondering how this
happens. Let me explain. I first heard about this phenomenon
while visiting various discussion boards on affiliate marketing.
Many affiliates had experienced a decline in sales while their
site's traffic stats remained high. Common discussions found in
affiliate forums include various software programs which "steal"
information. Many of these programs download themselves onto a
person's computer, either knowingly or unknowingly. These
programs can override your affiliate links each time the
customer visits your site, therefore giving credit to someone
else. Many times, people download packaged programs that contain
these types of software. The innocent surfer may not even
realize they have a program running in the background. Anyone
who takes part in the Internet community, whether it be a
webmaster or a surfer, should stay informed about these programs
by visiting parasiteware.com on a regular basis.

Link hijacking comes in various forms... not just from
downloads. Let's say your affiliate link looks like this:
www.url.com/?123456 , where 123456 is your affiliate ID. A link
hijacker is interested in the product and wants to purchase it.
He also wants the affiliate commission from the product. He
takes your ID 123456 and replaces it with his ID 999999 to look
like this: www.url.com/?999999 . The result? He gets the
commission from the product purchase. He modified the link to
benefit himself. You lose.

Here is another example of link hijacking: A customer comes to
your website and sees a link to the product that he wants to
buy. When he moves the mouse over your link information, he sees
your affiliate url in the status bar of his computer. Instead of
clicking your affiliate link, he decides to manually type it
into his address bar, leaving off the affiliate referral code:
www.url.com. This results in no affiliate tracking information
and no commissions for you. You lose again!

So how much money could you be losing? I have read that an
estimated 10-30% of commissions are lost due to affiliate link
hijacking. Can you imagine the kind of potential revenue that
you might be losing right now?

Take Action by Protecting Yourself From Revenue Loss

In the constant search for new scripts and software to improve
my websites, I have run into several affiliate cloaking devices.
Most of them cost around $50 or more. However, I did run into
one cloaking script that is free. It is called Affiliate Link
Cloaker (ALC). The site owner simply asks that you subscribe to
their newsletter. By golly, I love free stuff, don't you! If you
are interested in learning about this script and how it works,
you can visit their site at
webmasterinabox.net/affiliate_link_cloaker.html . They have
other scripts that you might find useful as well. Now, get out
there and protect those links!

About the author:
Stephani Richardson is a work at home mother of 4 who has been
actively involved with affiliate marketing and home business
opportunities since December 1999. She owns and operates several
business related websites including 1 Work At Home Dot Com
and Business-Oppurtunities.