Affiliate link cloaking and effect on SERPs

[DNelly]

Hi,

I have been reading in some SEO blogs that cloaking your affiliate links has a positive effect on your search results. Is this true?

I have about 5-7 outbound affiliate links on my homepage in my sidebar that link to URL's such as:

http://affiliate.example.com/customer=#asdl;ghlkajdfg%%^65436d.....etc

with link cloaking the link will look more like

http://example.org/goto/affiliatename/

Is it worth it to do this to my affiliate links from a search engine stand point?

Thanks in advance!

[edited by: bill at 8:57 am (utc) on Feb 23, 2010]
[edit reason] Use EXAMPLE.COM [/edit]

[gwnhwyvar]

I keep reading more on this, too - how affiliate links are "penalized" or some such thing (maybe someone more knowledgeable in this could clarify?) but I just don't understand why.

Anyway, I've started cloaking my links and one product page I hadn't even linked to anywhere yet because I was still working on it made a sale. Now that could be totally coincidence, don't know. That was just last week, so I'm watching this to see if it does seem to make a difference.

What stuns me more is if this is true, that the big G penalizes page rank/popularity due to affiliate links, pray tell just what is the web all about? Why is it alright for them to make their fortune online but affiliates not to grab the crumbs? Or am I missing something?

[tigger]

why are you trying to hide something that does no harm to your site? the only issue with affiliate pages / links is where the content of the page is weak and MC and many others have said they have no concerns over affiliate links, however try to cloak those links and your heading towards possible trouble