Stealing affiliate sales has become the "silent" Internet crime, stealing sales and products from the honest guy (or gal) who is trying to grow an Internet business.

I did not think that this crime would affect me, until I noticed that there were 3 times as many downloads of my ebook than there were actual sales. That was a wakeup call that I needed to correct the problem or risk losing hundreds of dollars.

The problem was that within my purchase page HTML, the download page URL that the purchaser would be directed to was posted in the HTML script like a sitting duck, saying "Why pay when you can download for free". From the HTML text anyone could copy the download page URL into their browser and download my product without making a purchase.

Well, this was not good news.

So, I quickly located a program that would mask my download page URL. There are a number of these programs available online, simply go to a search engine and type in "link cloaker" or "affiliate link cloaker". The programs are really very similar. You type in the URL that you want to mask.

example:

http//www.myaffiliate.com?ID2345

and the program generates a cryptic single line of numbers and letters, which you put into the HTML script to replace the easy to read URL

example:

<!-- begin link code -->

<a target="_blank" href="&#104;&#116;&#116;&#112;:&#47;&#47;&#119;&#119; &#119;&#46;&#104;&#111;&#109;&#101;&#109;&#111;&#110;&#101;& #121;&#116;&#111;&#100;&#97;&#121;&#46;&#99;&#111;&#109;" target="_blank" </A>

<!-- end link code -->

The download page URL is now masked and much more difficult for thieves to steal my product.

However, this does not work when posting an affiliate web page URL to classified ads, sales letters or Solo Ads (unless written in HTML, but not all email programs read HTML text). The "masked" URL is extremely lengthy and could easily turn off a reader and/or potential customer.

But, you can get around this hurdle by using a free URL direct service like the one offered by Bravenet (http//www.bravenet.com). You simply place your affiliate web page URL into the service.

example affiliate ID link:

http//www.myaffiliate.com?ID2345

and it will generate a shorter URL redirect URL

example:

http//clik.to/affiliate

that you can publish in newsletters, classified ads, or anywhere your affiliate web page URL would be seen publicly.

Your affiliate link is not visible, so no one can alter it. When someone clicks on your short re-direct URL, your affiliate web page will open in their browser.

The same can be achieved by creating an affiliate web page on your server (if you have a website), recreate your affiliate web page on your own web site by copying the HTML from your affiliate web page

(example) http//www.myaffiliate.com?ID2345

to a page on your web site:

(example) http//www.mysite.com/affiliate.htm

When the surfer opens the web page on your web site, there is your affiliate web page.

Be sure that you cloak the links on the recreated affiliate page on your web site.

Both your affiliate linking URL and your affiliate ID are masked from potential thieves.

The similar can be achieved, if you do not have your own web site and you link directly to your affiliate supplied web page. Go to the Bravenet Fast Redirect URL, enter the URL of your affiliate supplied web page. Then use the Bravenet redirect URL (which points to your affiliate supplied web page) to post to classified, sales letters, Solo Ads and newsletters, etc.

By masking your affiliate ID URL or links to your products will detour possible thieves from stealing from YOU.

About the author: Dustin Rhodes has written several Internet Home Business books and publishes the weekly home business e-zine: The Power Marketeer E-zine. For more information about Dustin visit the web site: http://www.powermarketeer.com