Affiliate Link Cloaking using PHP

do SEs penalize it?

[EricPindyck]

Couple of years ago I used to cloack my affiliate links with a simple php script:

<?
header("Location: [myaffiliatelink");...]
?>

and then link to this .php file on my own server instead of the real affiliate link.

I have been away from IM world for a few years and I have lots of catching ups to do. I was wondering if such practices are still safe to use without being penalized for cloacking or something?

cheers

[ogletree]

I don't see why that would be a problem. Cloaking is only bad when you show something to Google and something entirely different to the user. Of course even that is a gray area now. It seems that you can cloak to google to show premium content. Google has a big problem when you show Google a big text page full of repeated words and the user a nice pretty page.

[jatar_k]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld EricPindyck,

that wouldn't be considered cloaking though, you would be redirecting. I don't believe SE's would penalize that but you may want to look at what http code it uses, I think it might be 302 by default. I am not sure if that would be what you want or not.

Are you just trying to count clickthroughs?

[EricPindyck]

Thanks very much guys.

I use this cloacking (or redirection if you will) for two reason, first, it doesn't look like an affiliate link for those who don't like clicking on affiliate links, it will simply be mysite.com/bestproduct.php
and second, I can easily use this link in a info product or website and if I ever wanted to change affiliate programs I can simply edit the link on my own site and all the links will be updated autamtically.

[jatar_k]

very good reasons

I wouldn't worry but watch those http header codes ;)

[barns101]

I've been doing this for some time and haven't experienced any problems.

[eeek]

I have also been doing it for years without problems. But it's a lot easier (and faster) to use mod_rewrite instead of php.

[eeek]

I think it might be 302 by default. I am not sure if that would be what you want or not.

I've played with 301, 302 and even 307. Google doesn't appear to care.

[jatar_k]

though which you use can have very different effects when you talk indexing