Link Masking and Link Popularity

"Would affiliates using link masking software eliminate the link popularity benefits of using Ultimate Affiliate Package and Little Salesman affiliate programs that point toward an affiliate program on the merchant's site? -- Paul Willard, Advanta Corp.

Affiliate link cloaking programs (see Doctor Ebiz, 3/19/03 issue), such as Jim Edwards' Affiliate Link Cloaker, probably do prevent search engine robots from indexing an HTML link to the merchant's site. The link masking program that I use employs several techniques to protect the link from visibility and tampering:

• Converts all URLs to their equivalent hexadecimal codes.
• Employs JavaScript rather than standard HTML to execute the webpage.
• Places the affiliate site within a frame, effectively hiding the destination URL from view.

Both JavaScript and frames can disrupt search engine indexing. I sympathize with merchants who have affiliate programs, since this can lessen their link popularity. But affiliates are desperate to keep their commissions from being hijacked. A merchant's main consolation is that most affiliates probably don't employ affiliate link cloaking -- only those who are serious about earning affiliate commissions.