As a blogger, affiliate marketer, or site owner of any niche, you may need to cloak links for various purposes. In this article, we will share with you the best information about 10 affiliate link Cloaker plugins.
In this best list guide, you will learn what link cloaking is? Why should you use it? Benefits of link cloaking? And also you will come to know which affiliate link cloaking plugin you should use on your WordPress site with a step-by-step guide.
So let’s start…
Before going to know the list of recommended link cloaking/masking plugins, I would like to share with you What is link cloaking?
What Is Link Cloaking?
Link cloaking or masking is a process where you can cover up an affiliate link or ID into a new connection with text that is more attractive and clickable.
Example your affiliate link: http://www.affiliatesite.com/productsname/?product_id=15443&affiliate=1658
By the link cloaking process, you can short a long ugly affiliate URL into a new custom URL.
Your new cloaking link: or
After cloaking affiliate links, a redirect will happen so that marketer’s affiliate commission is well-protected. Read the best affiliate marketing plugin to enhance commission.
You can mask a link with your domain or third-party links. This process makes affiliate links shorter than original with customized texts.
Normally an affiliate link is long, difficult to remember, and displays an affiliate ID that is harmful to a marketer to keep saving the commission.
So that link cloaking process is the best defiance right now.
Benefits of Link Cloaking/Masking?
One of the best benefits of link cloaking is to convert an ugly long URL into short URLs with customized text for higher CTR.
- You can also calculate which affiliate links get more clicks and which is not.
- You can analyze the overall performance of affiliate links daily or monthly based.
- It will help to create nofollow/dofollow links automatically.
- You can set automatic keywords links.
- Reduce link spamming
- Increases click-through rate (CTR) of your affiliate links.
- You can add power & trusted words in affiliate links.
- Full data analysis of all links and more
How To Cloak Affiliate Links (Free WordPress Plugins)
There are many affiliate links cloaking WordPress plugins, but here I will show you only 10 plugins and their features with benefits.
So let’s start…
Thirsty Affiliates
ThirstyAffiliates is one of the best affiliate link cloaking and affiliate link manager plugins that allow you to create links and analyze all data from one dashboard.
It is the most used link cloaking premium plugin but its free version is enough for the basic level data analysis and cloaking of any affiliate links.
Thirsty Affiliates offer advanced data analysis and automatic keyword linking that is good for enhancing affiliate commission.
The most important features of Thirsty Affiliates are…
- Cloak long ugly affiliate links into short.
- Protect your commissions from theft.
- Insert affiliate links into blog posts easily.
- Autolink Keywords.
- Smart link uncloaking.
- CSV Import/Export.
- Geolocation Links.
- Automatic 404 checker.
- Block specific boots to follow links.
- Default Link Insertion Type and more
With the free version, you will not get some features like automatic keyword linking, GEO location links targeting, etc. But you can use it free for the 1st time.
Auto Affiliate Links
This is another best freemium auto-affiliate link cloaking plugin. But the plugin does allow to cloak ugly affiliate links into short smart links because this feature is available for the pro version.
So question why will you use it? Well, you can use it to add links automatically to your content. It is a great feature that you will not get free from others’ same plugins.
Also, you can manually insert links into your content with nofollow or dofollow link attributes.
Here are a few popular features…
- Automatic keywords linking.
- Display auto links from Amazon, Shareasale, Clickbank eBay, Walmart, Commission Junction, BestBuy, and Envato Marketplace.
- Nofollow or dofollow link and more.
If you want to automatically add affiliate links from publisher networks mentioned in the 1st paragraph, you have to add their publisher advertising API key.
However, you can control maximum and minimum links in content from the plugin dashboard. So if you have lots of traffic and content on your site, you can use this free.
Pretty Links
Any ugly links cloaking process is easy with the Pretty link. Maybe you already know about this plugin or hearing the 1st time.
However, this is a good plugin for shorting long affiliate links into short and smart with custom text. It is a complete link management plugin that allows you to discover a complete report of links.
It allows any links of your website that redirect to any other URL (it allows 301, 302, and 307 redirect mode)
The most core features of this plugin are…
- Allow creating a long ugly URL into a short URL.
- Analysis of full data of links like IP, clicks, geolocation, etc.
- Download analysis report with CSV format.
- Cookie-based system for tracking visitor activity.
- Create nofollow or dofollow links.
- Bookmarklet feature.
- Social sharing button.
- Allow sending cloak links via Email directly from your WordPress dashboard and more.
You can use it for its lightweight coding & unique features. But it does not create auto links in your content. If you want to enable this feature with many tools, you have to upgrade it free to premium.
Easy Affiliate Links
In our research and live test, it is a simple link cloaking WordPress plugin which is good for both pretty links and regular non-cloaked links.
That means the plugin allows only cloak ugly links into new short links with your own domain name. But its great feature is, you can track all activists of links even you can download all cloaked links and data in XML & CSV format.
Some features of the Easy affiliate links plugin…
- Compatible with both WordPress classic and Gutenberg block.
- Allow HTML codes or regular links.
- Allow UGC and sponsored link attributes.
- One-click used link finding feature.
- Truck monthly and lifetime link clink activities and more
This is the only simple free link cloaking plugin. Perfect for cloaking affiliate links, not other features.
AzonPress
Among all of the Amazon Affiliate plugins, AzonPress is the best, amazing, smartest, and powerful affiliate management plugin which is built for Amazon. Whatever the other plugins provide, this plugin offers more than that. This plugin is swifter and provides smooth outcomes.
The plugin is for those who are serious about marketing and want to save time and effort so that they can achieve success more. You can explore more by using it more, and you can choose the layout from different options as a grid, list, table to how you want to display your product. And you can shorten your work by using shortcodes.
The installation is easy, and the presentation is eye-catching. Also, this plugin allows you to have a responsive and adaptive layout. Moreover, AzonPress does not charge extra for add-ons, whereas other plugins need you to pay more to use their add-ons. You can get everything quickly at a cheaper rate.
Some of its distinguishable features are:
- User-friendly customization
- Automatic product updates
- Geo-targeting option available
- Easy for beginners
- Enthralling product presentation
- Responsive product tables
- Ready and adaptable layouts
- Shortcodes integration
Price starts from only $39/year for a single site with 1-year customer support.
Keywords to Links Converter:
This is another one affiliate link cloaking plugin including a link shortener feature. This free plugin easily allows you to create your own shortcut links via the keywords.
The best feature of this link converter is auto-linking with keywords, but you can manually do this in your blog content.
The auto shortening feature is very case sensitive for more right link replacement. So it is good for search engines. Also, dofollow/nofollow is another feature that you can control from the plugin setting page.
Here are a few features of the Keywords to Links Converter plugin.
- Auto linking keyword.
- Auto link shortener.
- Dofollow/Nofollow attribute setting.
- Link opening target.
- Link Shrink.
- Case sensitive and more.
Although the plugin is free, but it has a premium version that has more pro features like social media sharing tooltip, google maps popup, Internal URL, and more.
WooCommerce Cloak Affiliate Links:
Especially this plugin has been created for cloaking WooCommerce products link. You can cloak all affiliate product links into new custom links that will increase the higher CTR rate.
This pretty much simple link masking plugin allows you to configure the status code for the redirect to either 301, 302, or 307.
You can disallow this plugin to your robot’s txt file that prevents boots from crawling all external affiliate cloaking links.
Simple URLs:
Another simple open-source link masking or cloaking plugin is ‘Simple URL’. It is a medium-level link management plugin that smoothly trucks outbound link activities by using custom post types and 301 redirects.
The plugin will not create any permalink conflict. You can easily control page-based redirection that is the current trend for masking affiliate links.
The plugin allows you to create new custom post-type links to your admin menu where you can see all links activities, create, edit, delete, and manage URLs.
AAWP
There are many Amazon affiliate marketing plugins, but the one that has built goodwill and reputation in the marketing enthusiasts is AAWP. Because it is user-friendly, affordable, feature-rich, and it takes your Amazon affiliate to the next stage.
The whole package AAWP provides is focused on giving you significant results attending to your customers that visit your site. Moreover, the visual aesthetics are better than most other Amazon affiliate marketing plugins.
It can improve the earnings from Amazon affiliates for the bloggers. For that, it can be an amazing tool. It also has caching support combined with a set of designs, filtering, product boxes, and related features.
Some of its other distinguishable features are:
- Geo-targeting option that can connect buyers across different countries
- Creating buy button
- Attractive affiliate link building
- Creating Product comparison tables
- Making different styles is easy and exciting
- Regular updates
Price starts from only Euro 49/year for a single site with 1-year customer support.
EasyAzon
It is not enough for your blog to be just in one place. It should shine over more than your target place. You should not miss the traffic you get extra and those who come and follow the affiliate links. They can be value-adding to your earning, and for that, you need the EasyAzon Amazon affiliate plugin and get them on your network. Because of this, EasyAzon is the second among the best plugins for Amazon affiliate marketing after AzonPress.
As this allows localization options and setting the ASIN code for multiple countries, users from any location will be redirected to their local Amazon, and you will not miss the international commission.
Because of this fantastic feature, whatever your customers choose and buy, you will profit. And you can make it automatic.
Some of its other distinguishable features are:
- Connecting local Amazon store
- Easy setup process
- The localization option ensures you get a commission for different storefronts
- Setting the ASIN code for multiple countries is also available
Price starts from only $47/year for the unlimited sites with limited customer support.
Final Words
So we hope our list of the best affiliate link Cloaker plugins will help you to find the best one. But we recommend using a freemium one. That means you can use Thirsty affiliate plugin (Try Thirsty Affiliate Pro) for the general site and AzonPress for the amazon affiliate site or any other auto links plugin. This type of plugin will help you to get more features and increase affiliate commission without violating any SEO rules.