How Affiliate Cloaking Works
Many affiliate marketer’s aren’t aware how affiliate cloaking actually works- some don’t even know that it is possible to steal affiliate commisions.
If you take the example of ClickBank, everytime a visitor clicks on an affiliate link on your website they are directed to the merchant’s sales page via the ClickBank Server. The ClickBank server writes a cookie to the visitor’s machine, which if they purchase you are credited with the commision. Affiliate cloaking allows the affiliate to hide their clickbank hoplink from the visitor, thus presenting themselves as an unbiased reccomendation. It has been proven that someone is more likely to buy if they believe the website will not gain from their purchase.