Most affiliates are losing 1 out of every 4 sales... That's 25% in lost sales. That's very, very bad if you think about the time and money these affiliates invest into their marketing. That's the bad news, but the good news is that there are tools that instantly generate safe affiliate links in a cloaked format, so they can save the sales they are losing, without even knowing it.

These tools are called affiliate link cloakers and are created to protect from affiliate link theft. They are usually designed by coders or programmers in various formats, such as HTML, PHP or just a simple .exe file you download to windows.

There are many different versions, paid and free. They usually do different things, and you get what you pay for. Going for the free ones may not always be the best alternative, because there is usually limited usability or missed features that paid versions have.

An affiliate link cloaker covers your affiliate link so that it looks more attractive for visitors to click and buy using that link. It hides your link, so that even if you show the source code or try to save the page, there's no way for the visitors to see your affiliate ID, thus makes it impossible for them to steal your commissions.

However, there are some downsides. If the person is out there to steal your affiliate commissions they WILL steal you affiliate commissions. There's no way to stop those thieves from taking your money, sorry! So you can only protect yourself to a certain degree.

However, getting the best affiliate link cloaker is ideal. Many of the affiliate cloaks out there use similar methods, but there are some that use unique ways of cloaking the affiliate link. Some are SIMPLE to use and some are difficult to use...

No matter what you decide, you want to have a link cloaker to some degree. Even guru's are using free ones that make your url shorter, but it doesn't allow you to change the link if you are going to use it at a later stage.

The free online services that are made for you can be good for cloaking your affiliate link and I recommend using them if you are not using one right now, as having something is better than nothing. And having protected your affiliate links may increase your sales by as much as 400%, even if you do not know what you are doing...