Personally, I think it depends on the site or program you're using to cloak the links. For example, I believe bitly and tinyurl are really overused today by some of the "get rich quick" type schemes out there. When people see links like these, they may not want to click on them because a lot of them are associated with bad programs.
Second, if the cloaking software or the URL shortener site goes down, so do all of your links. This was mentioned in a recent forum post.
Third, you lose your branding. And this is critical to your success! You want people to know, like and trust you if you want to be successful, and you can lose that trust if you're hiding behind a cloak of any kind.
If you want to "disguise" or shorten your long SFI affiliate link in any way, I would suggest maintaining a blog and using blog post URLs to advertise. This maintains your branding and you'll look a lot more trustworthy to your viewers.
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Personally, I think it depends on the site or program you're using to cloak the links. For example, I believe bitly and tinyurl are really overused today by some of the "get rich quick" type schemes out there. When people see links like these, they may not want to click on them because a lot of them are associated with bad programs.
Second, if the cloaking software or the URL shortener site goes down, so do all of your links. This was mentioned in a recent forum post.