Google On Cloaking Affiliate Links

Google’s John Mueller was asked about the pros and cons of cloaking affiliate links. John responded on Twitter saying, “I don’t think you gain anything by cloaking the affiliate links, it just adds complexity. You can use a DB-driven setup without cloaking too.”

The question was “as an affiliate, I’ve used cloaking to manage the thousands of ad link locations around my site (not hide them), I only have to update 1 link in my database if a partner’s endpoint changes.”

The response was interesting as well:

Hey @JohnMu a question I’ve always put off asking.

As an affiliate, I’ve used cloaking to manage the thousands of ad link locations around my site (not hide them), I only have to update 1 link in my database if a partner’s endpoint changes.

Is this still deemed poor practice?

— Martin McGarry (@seomcgarry) August 24, 2022

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The aff managers don’t run databases they’re salespeople, they also use WordPress
Some examples:https://t.co/m7mXuNTELEhttps://t.co/wmJI7CHSKu

We change tohttps://t.co/7XfBWAqjI9https://t.co/2dvcvQd3Dz

That’s so much easier for the aff team, we’re not trying to hide links

— Martin McGarry (@seomcgarry) August 24, 2022

Recently someone asked about swapping out affiliate links to try to see improvements after the product reviews update, to which John responded to as well.

Forum discussion at Twitter.