Blunder #8: Open affiliate links

Open affiliate links are just plain dumb. What do I mean by this? Simply put, if your blog is filled with blatant ClickBank, Commission Junction or ShareASale affiliate links, then your blog might get penalized by Google as a “thin affiliate” site.

That’s a bad thing.

To avoid this, there are a number of ways to mask or hide your affiliate links such
as using re-directs or modifying your web server’s .htaccess file. But, there are too
many ways to get into here.


Note: Many autoblog tools or scripts use direct affiliate links to Amazon, Commission Junction, etc. As you now understand, doing this is risky.

Take Away: Hide your affiliate links - period. Don’t use blatant affiliate
links like this: http://zzzzz.1234.hop.clickbank.net.

Instead, mask it like this:
www.yourblogname.com/resource2.htm