Many surfers are savvy enough to identify ClickBank affiliate links, simply by glancing at their browser's status-bar before clicking. The status-bar reveals the familiar ClickBank hoplink URL, which frequently alerts the surfer that an affiliate referral is about to take place. A proportion of prospects lose interest as soon as they realize that an affiliate relationship exists. They reason (consciously or sub-consciously) that an affiliate with a vested interest is not making a genuine recommendation. So they simply don't click the link.

The result: no sale and hence no commission for you.

A simple modification to the HTML code in your referral links can make them appear like conventional (non-commercial) hyperlinks, thus restoring their perceived impartiality and increasing the likelihood that you will get the desired click.

When your prospect's mouse cursor hovers over a standard HTML hyperlink, the browser's status-bar displays the target URL. Status-bar faking replaces the default status-bar message with a custom message that hides the target URL. It is implemented using HTML code that instructs the status-bar to display a specific text message in place of the default message.

You can use the following HTML code template to construct a ClickBank hoplink with a fake status-bar message:

a href="http://hop.clickbank.net/?AFFILIATE/MERCHANT" onmouseover="window.status='PRODUCT-PAGE';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;"Click Here/a

To use this template, you would typically make the following changes:

- replace AFFILIATE with your ClickBank affiliate nickname
- replace MERCHANT with the ClickBank nickname of the merchant you are promoting
- replace PRODUCT-PAGE with the URL of the merchant's sales page

Once installed in the pages of your affiliate website, this faking technique will refer prospects to the merchant in the normal manner. But when the prospect's mouse cursor hovers over the link, instead of displaying the ClickBank hoplink URL in the status-bar, it will display the merchant's sales page URL (or whatever custom text you choose).

This simple change means that it will no longer be possible to tell, simply by looking at the status-bar, that your links are ClickBank affiliate referral links.

It must be acknowledged that this technique is a little dishonest; it deliberately misleads the prospect about the true nature of your affiliate referral. Some affiliates prefer to mitigate their deception by using a status-bar message that simply describes the product. They see this as an embellishment of the affiliate process, rather than a deliberate falsification. The choice is yours. But, whichever approach you adopt, it will likely give a much-needed boost to your affiliate referral rate.

Status-bar faking is one of a number of methods used by ClickBank affiliates to protect themselves against the pervasive threat of link theft (and the various other forms of referral losses). Although not as robust as the more widely-used technique of link cloaking, status-bar faking is very simple to implement, bringing it within the reach of even the novice affiliate.

Copyright © Tim Coulter. All rights reserved.

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Tim Coulter is a consultant and software developer who helps netpreneurs to harness marketing technologies.

He is also the author of "ClickBank - The Definitive Guide" The Ultimate ClickBank Tutorial & Reference Manual.

http://www.clickbankrevealed.com/
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