Can I Cloak Amazon Links?

Link cloaking is when you add a branded redirect to your affiliate link. Instead of readers seeing your raw affiliate link, they'll see a link with your domain instead.

Let's say you want to promote a product on Amazon, so you create an affiliate link:

☝️ That's an uncloaked link because that's the original target URL. It's the affiliate URL your audience will see in their browser after clicking the link.

A cloaked link would make it look branded with your site. For example, a cloaked link could be something like:

With cloaked links, leaders will see your site name on the link but will be redirected to the above Amazon product when they click the link.

Here is what the Amazon Associates Operating Agreement Program Policies says about link cloaking:

“You will not cloak, hide, spoof, or otherwise obscure the URL of your Site containing Special Links (including by use of Redirecting Links) or the user agent of the application in which Content is displayed or used such that we cannot reasonably determine the site or application from which a customer clicks through such Special Link to the Amazon Site.”

They also reference link shortening:

“You will not use a link shortening service in a manner that makes it unclear that you are linking to an Amazon Site.“

Essentially, Amazon's biggest concern is obscuring the referring URL of the site that the link goes to. In other words, if it’s not obvious that a cloaked or shortened affiliate link on your site sends customers to Amazon, you’re not compliant.

Based on our conversations with Amazon and our interpretation, this means you can cloak Amazon links as long as it's clear the cloaked link goes to Amazon.

Lasso does give you the option to cloak Amazon links.

To make sure you stay compliant, we add an /amazon/ subfolder to your cloaked Amazon links, like this:

This way, it's clear that the link goes to Amazon. The link will also have your tracking ID attached so that Amazon knows you sent the click.

However you choose to add an Amazon link to Lasso, Lasso will ensure you're always compliant with Amazon's Terms.

If you have any questions, please contact us via the chat bubble in the bottom right corner of this page or email us at [email protected]. We're here to help!