Are link shorteners costing you sales?

by 26 Comments

Do you use a link shortening service to cloak your links? It seems like everyone these days is using a free link shortening service in order to shorten their long affiliate links.  Cloaking links makes sense and protects your affiliate commissions too, so shortening your link for free is a good thing, right?

Maybe yes, maybe no.

While shortening makes perfect sense (and I do it every time I promote) did you know that using certain free services might actually cost you sales?

It’s vital that you know which services to use and which carry risk. This article by the good folks at Aweber sheds light on this growing problem and will help you make sense of what service to use.

Read the article here

My take? I would never use a free link shortening service unless I absolutely had to due to money. Great link trackers like Hypertracker (my favorite) and others offer cloaking and split testing and sale tracking and much more. I know you are serious about your business so, when you can afford it, I feel it makes sense to invest in your success by using a professional grade link tracking service.

Hope you find this helpful.

 

 

 

About Charlie Page

Happily married for 37 years, Charlie is the dad to two wonderful daughters. He is the author of 10 books on Internet marketing and owner of The Directory of Ezines, Follow Up Selling Systems and other membership sites.

Comments

  1. Lanny Loreto says:
    January 3, 2012 at 10:29 pm

    Thanks Charlie, for give me a warning. I am only beginner start learning about affiliate marketing that involve in shortening the url. I start using bit.ly.com . Know after reading your article I have to change it. Once again “Thank you”

    Reply
  2. Sergio Online Electronics says:
    September 13, 2011 at 11:54 pm

    Hi

    Sounds like Hypertracker is the one. I’ll give it a go.

    Sergio

    Reply
  3. Sergio says:
    August 8, 2011 at 1:21 am

    Hi Charlie,

    thank you for this very informative post. I have a question.
    If you are an affiliate can you still cloack you links? I hear that Clickbank recently penalised a lot of “Link Cloackers” but I believe that was refered to people wanting to steal commissions from affiliates

    I am also aware that Clickbank provide all affiliates with a special affiliate link 1 with a special ‘Hop Link’ but are we still able to hyde our links and “cloack” them
    to ensure no one steals our commission?

    And what do you think is the best and safest link cloacking system out there?

    Sergio

    Reply
    • Charlie Page says:
      August 8, 2011 at 4:38 pm

      Sergio,

      To the best of my knowledge cloaking your links is 100% fine. I certainly cloak mine as I use Hypertracker to track everything. Clickbank themselves offer every affiliate a cloaked link right within the Marketplace so I can’t imagine them having an anti-cloaking position.

      Charlie

      Reply
  4. steve fortosis says:
    August 6, 2011 at 8:19 am

    Thanks for the info, Charlie. I try to read your various tips and pointers because you know the business so well.

    Reply
  5. Walter Gavurnik says:
    July 22, 2011 at 7:29 pm

    After reading the posts after mine, and before, I just checked the five most used link shorteners. As of today the only one blacklisted is bit.ly by Spamhaus!
    The five checked where;
    http://bit.ly/
    http://tinyurl.com/
    http://goo.gl/
    http://budurl.com/
    http://snipurl.com/
    Does this mean it is safe to use URL shorteners? That’s up to you I guess…
    I simply won’t put my money on any of these sites any more! I NEED my mail to be opened
    and read, so if using link shortening services has any chance of compromising that ability,
    there is no way I will use them at all!
    May GOD Bless everyone and endow you with prosperity in all your endeavors!
    Walt

    Reply
  6. Rich says:
    July 22, 2011 at 2:27 pm

    Thanks for alerting me to this very important info. I see I have to make some changes and quick!…

    Reply
  7. Isaac says:
    July 22, 2011 at 8:15 am

    This is interesting.

    I normally use Tinyurl and for the most part have been fine with it.

    It is interesting that you recommend Hypertracker.

    I notice they are owned by the same company who own GetResponse. Will certainly take a look at purchasing that.

    But do I actually need to?..because GR Track everything in my emails already?

    Thanks for the post Charlie.

    I’m actually going to be in touch with you very soon to join your DOE club.

    Thanks again.

    Reply
  8. Chinedu says:
    July 21, 2011 at 7:36 pm

    Thank you very much, that was great information. More grease to your elbow!
    I have been using tinyurl too.The service is ok for now.

    Reply
  9. rumen says:
    July 21, 2011 at 11:53 am

    May be this information is true but until now i don’t have any problem with deliverability of
    my e-mails. I have using always tiny url.I have testing my e-mails with main e-mail providers such Google,Yahoo and MSN and i never had any problems .

    Thanks

    Rumen

    Reply
  10. Celie says:
    July 21, 2011 at 11:20 am

    Thanks Charlie, I read the article at AW and was surprised to see Bit.ly on one spammer list, I will not use that one again. Is there a way of just writing our own short link without getting a domain etc etc which I did not understand how to do. I mean like the h ref code we all use for anchor texts.

    Reply
  11. Mike Bannister says:
    July 21, 2011 at 12:22 am

    How about an article on the alternatives Charllie

    Reply
  12. Bettie Wylie says:
    July 21, 2011 at 12:14 am

    Hey Charlie,
    Thank you so much for this helpful article and information. I’ve learned a lot here about link shortners and the effect it can have on one’s messages being delivered or (spammed) trashed. I use bit.ly, my own domain with extentions, affiliate links, in many promotions… and have used hyper-tracker in the past. All of them don’t track conversions though. What I was wondering is ‘How should I track my own domain with extentions added?
    I currently have the Affiliate Link (WordPress) Plugin installed, but I’m not sure of the best way to track this. My statcounter does track visitors, length of time on site, etc.., and I don’t want to sound stupid, but I’m not sure how the AL cloaker is tracking clicks, etc. However, I might be missing something using the A-L-Plugin. Am I making any sense? (e.g.. http://my domainname.com/best-books…, OR
    http://www.my domainname.com/best-books…). Plus, my domain name is not the shortest, but it is far from being the longest… but with the extentions, it can be a pinch longer. Any feedback is beneficial and helpful to me.
    P.S. Sometimes I forget the best place & time to use my domainname with the AL Cloaker, ext.
    Thanks in advance! You guys are so amazing and caring.

    :-) Bettie

    Reply
  13. Mark - 77 Success Traits says:
    July 20, 2011 at 11:43 pm

    How about using a redirect? Isn’t that better than using link shortener?

    Cheers~

    Mark

    Reply
  14. Perry Roberts says:
    July 20, 2011 at 9:07 pm

    Charlie
    As always your info is valuable.I am now changing my thinking on link shoteners.
    Thanks again
    Perry

    Reply
  15. Mike Webb says:
    July 20, 2011 at 8:11 pm

    Excellent article. I always avoid the short links that I see in emails that use the bit.ly service and others. It tells me that the marketer isn’t serious about what they are selling. There are a lot of scripts out there that you can use for free just go to Youtube and you’ll find several free options to cloak your link and make it look much more professional.

    Reply
  16. James lane says:
    July 20, 2011 at 4:45 pm

    Charlie,

    This is another great article with sound advice from you.

    Your articles are always timely and straight to the point. That is greatly appreciated by me.

    Thanks very much.

    James Lane

    Reply
  17. Walter Gavurnik says:
    July 20, 2011 at 3:54 pm

    I read that article from Aweber. Very enlightening…
    Funny thing is I was in the middle of writing a plugin to cloak and track links!
    I’m both proud and happy to say I finished and never have to worry about my
    links being banned or worse again!
    Want to test it with me Charlie? I could use the testimonial…

    Thanks,
    Walt

    Reply
  18. Anwarali Warsi says:
    July 20, 2011 at 3:40 pm

    I had used a local type shortener, I think you are right.

    Reply
  19. Martin Findling says:
    July 20, 2011 at 3:33 pm

    Great Article Charlie, I am using bit.ly links only in social media not in e-mails. I wasn’t aware of the problems using short links could cause. Thanks for the great info.
    Cheers, Martin

    Reply
  20. Cat Milton says:
    July 20, 2011 at 3:13 pm

    Good point, Charlie.
    I’m really careful about when I do & don’t advise my clients to use Link Shortners & the mirade of ways to use / not to use these to best advantage. I’m not into “Internet Marketing” in the most usually understood sense of the term but in Social Media optimisation – and it’s just as important in that field to!

    Reply
  21. Tom Mezgar says:
    July 20, 2011 at 3:08 pm

    Charlie,

    Great information, appreciate all the things you do for your members.

    Thanks
    Tom

    Reply
  22. Tim Jeter says:
    July 20, 2011 at 3:04 pm

    Thanks, Charlie. This only reinforces the notion that something like Hypertracker is the better solution. I’ve seen others use it for quite a while but just haven’t gone that route. Now I’m considering doing just that.

    Thanks,
    -Tim

    Reply
  23. Rebecca Hadley says:
    July 20, 2011 at 3:01 pm

    Thank you very much Charlie, I will use it next time I want to shorten my site. I have signed up with BetterWebBuilder System to promote my business. Can I use your articles on my blog with BWB?

    Reply

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