Link cloaking is infamous in affiliate marketing for the difficulty it creates in tracking and detecting fraudulent traffic.
Link cloaking is a technique used by brand bidders to hide their identity via shortening, or cloaking, affiliate links.
That way, it is very hard to identify violators because neither the website nor the source code give the information about brand bidder origin.
As original links typically contain long strings of characters and appear spammy, by cloaking these links, affiliates and make them look more organic and credible. Although link cloaking is often necessary to make affiliate links appear user-friendly, it does create fertile ground for fraud and brand abuse.
This is why affiliate de-cloaking becomes so important in cases when you have to combat potential fraud and or link cloaking from affiliates you cannot trust fully. Bad faith actors often use cloaked links to hide infringement and unethical brand bidding from brand owners. When webmasters cloak their links, it becomes increasingly difficult to track and prove brand bidding, making de-cloaking essential for long-term integrity and flourishing of your brand.
BluePear – Brand Violations Monitoring tool, developed with the sole aim of taking care of your brand’s protection. With features ranging from brand abuse detection to instant uncloak, BluePear might become your perfect ally in the battle against affiliate fraud such as brand bidding, cloaked affiliate links, URL-hijacking, and trademark abuse
Let’s explore the dangers of fraud via link cloaking and why you need to use automatic monitoring services to uncloak links to prove all violations in Search Marketing.
WHY YOU SHOULD USE BRAND MONITORING TOOLS
Detection of Violations Manual monitoring and detection of brand bidding is a challenging and time-consuming task, especially when dealing with cloaked links. Cloaking makes it almost impossible to detect violations by webmasters, resulting in brands diluting campaign budgets as they have to pay for non-compliant traffic
Providing Evidence of Brand Bidding It is difficult to dispute brand bidding without direct proof, which is almost always the case when dealing with webmasters using link cloaking. Brand bidding monitoring tools such as BluePear do not merely uncloak affiliate links but also provide brand owners with immediate proofs of violations to challenge affiliate claims.
Protecting Brand Reputation And more on reputation. Cloaking can be used to hide malicious or inappropriate content that might be associated with a brand, damaging its reputation. Brand image online is extremely fragile and can be tarnished by associations with harmful or inappropriate content. It is important to constantly monitor branded search results in order to quickly prevent reputational risks.
**Competitive Intelligence ** Being one step ahead of your competitors is a big advantage.Understanding the use of cloaking by competitors or in the industry can provide valuable insights for strategic decisions.
BLUEPEAR FEATURES FOR MONITORING AND UNMASKING CLOAK
WIDE GEO COVERAGE At the core of BluePear lies its enhanced proxy integration. It covers all GEOs, offering proxy providers for each specific location, with the possibility of swift changes during failed attempts.
Proxy servers are critical for brand protection, since they act as intermediaries between BluePear’s user and the target website, masking the user's identity and location. This not only adds an extra layer of security but also contributes to the seamless operation of the tool by enabling strategic proxy changes during affiliate de-cloaking attempts.
AUTOMATIC UNMASKING
Users can adjust the frequency of uncloaking based on their preferences and requirements for defending against blackhat PPC.
In this aspect, BluePear goes beyond automatic unmasking by presenting results in a user-friendly manner. The "Ad Overview" section offers insights into uncloaked ads, allowing users to track and assess the effectiveness of the tool based on real-world examples and instances of brand bidding.
UNCLOAKING IN REAL-TIME
Live Uncloaking allows for immediate uncloaking without waiting for automatic checks, offering faster insights. This feature ensures time-sensitive decisions can be made promptly, helping brand protection strategy adapt in real-time when faced with immediate threats of brand bidding and blackhat PPC.
To conclude, digital brand security is hard to earn and even harder to preserve. But BluePear takes brand protection to the next level with automatic monitoring of affiliate campaigns and brand bidding detection, freeing your marketing team to concentrate on the more complex, strategic tasks.
Equipped with enhanced proxy integration, automated and customizable uncloak, result tracking, instant uncloaking options, compliance enforcement, reputation protection, and competitive intelligence, BluePear emerges as a formidable ally for countering brand bidding, trademark infringement, and blackhat PPC practices. In a marketing landscape rife with competition and fraud, all those features become a must-have.
And you can get them all in a single digital solution! Rely on BluePear, protect your brand, and make every penny in the marketing effort count.
