Over the last few years the problem of Affiliate Link Hijacking has increased and Internet Marketers all over the world are loosing millions. It is estimated that more than 30% of all Affiliate Commissions are lost because of Affiliate Link Hijacking and Affiliate Link workarounds. Something has to be done and there are now several solutions on the market that can be purchased, downloaded for free or you can make a solution for yourself without any big problems.

There are however many thing to think about when you choose a solution to protect your Affiliate Links for Hijacking. Some methods on the market works and some not, some Affiliate Programs will "block" your site if you use the wrong solutions and some solutions are simply unstable. First of all let us take a look at some of the techniques that can be used to protect your affiliate links.

Framing
Framing your affiliate page is to put the site you are promoting inside a frame. This is a BAD solution, some sites does not support framing and some sites will throw your affiliate link out and you will not make the commission. Some solutions on the market even suggest "cheap" encryption of codes etc. Not a good idea, and some browsers will have problems.

Redirecting
It is also possible to simply create a Redirection page on your own server using or other redirecting functions. This is actually not too bad a system. The problem is that some programs don't like this kind of redirecting and Google is not to happy about it. If you want to use redirecting using .htaccess and 404 files are the best solution.

Javascripts
This solution is one of the best of the bad ones. It works of done in the right way, but can be very complicated for "newbies" to HTML. Another problem is that there still are a few surfers out there with "bad" browsers that will have problems with your script as well as of course a lot of the Javascript systems on the market are unstable.

Short Urls
This is actually a not to bad solution. It is mostly free and it works. You simply go to a site like inha.no or tinyurl.com and generate a "Short URL" for free. This works simply because you will be redirected to the Affiliate site with the correct address, and this is the point of Affiliate Link Security. As soon as your clients has arrived to the site with the correct link the cookies are set and you will get your commission even if they change the link. At least this is the case for about 90% of the Affiliate Programs on the market, and certainly the case for all the serious ones.

Software
There are many software solutions also on the market, personally I don't like any of them.

Database Solutions
Lately there has also been released a few "Database" Solutions. This are in my meaning very good solutions that take use of the .htaccess files and MySQL to create professional affiliate links that also reflects your own domain. Most of them "locks" you into one kind of link likhttp://www.yourdomain.com/recommends/something but that is ok. The good part is that these system gives you flexibility and professional looking links that works and will increase the sales.
The backside of most of this systems however is that they require Linux or Unix hosting with PHP, that includes most servers but excludes Windows Servers and ASP supported sites. This is a problem of course if your web-site is hosted on a Windows Server. Also most of these systems requires Installation and of course MySQL. This can be complicated for Newbies and is after my meaning the weak part of the systems. Also these systems offers no kind of extra features like statistics etc.

The professional Solution
A professional Affiliate Link Security solution should include several features and should be easy to use, let us take a look at a few things I think is important for such a solution:

1. Easy to use and a minimum of installation and configuration
2. Should generate professional links and have flexibility. For example you should be able to create both YourDomain.com/recommends/shop and YourDomain.com/shop and other combination
3. The system should keep track of the numbers of click generated by each link. In this way you can create different links for different sites/blogs etc and find out what works best.
4. You should be able to use the system on several domains
5. You should have a system where you stored all your affiliate programs. A database where you store details like username, password etc.

There are also other features I would like to see, but those are the most important ones.

So then is there such a system? Yes there is the AffiliateCloakerPRO.com is such a system and so much more, let me explain a bit about it.

AffiliateCloakerPRO.com is probably the most complete system on the market and it works, it is easy and it offers all the features mentioned above + more!

In a nutshell this is how AffiliateCloakerPRO.com works:
- You sign up for an account
- You download 2 small files
- You upload these files to your server
- DONE!!

Ingar Hagen is an experienced Internet Marketer that has been working online for more than 15 years.
Over the years he has builded up the online Internet Marketing Company ID Effector.com (http://www.ideffector.com)

ID Effector offers a range of Internet Marketing and Promotion services as well as they develop online businesses.