The best way to protect your affiliate marketing commissions from online theft, is to hide your affiliate links.
Although you can purchase software online, at reasonable prices, to “cloak” you affiliate links, 
the effectiveness of these software programs vary greatly.
It’s a good idea to look into these programs, and learn as much as possible, before committing yourself to a purchase.
One way to hide your affiliate links and protect your affiliate marketing commissions is through the use of click tracking software.
Click tracking software is normally installed on your website. Once it’s installed, the software does not show the target URL; instead the links point inwardly towards the installed software on your website.
When someone clicks on your link, the application redirects the visitor to the URL that you specified in the script, in the click tracking software.
Click tracking software also provides an easy, more accurate way to monitor the effectiveness of your affiliate advertising, in addition to protecting your affiliate marketing commissions.
Using some of the more recent banner servers, can also hide your affiliate links and protect your affiliate marketing commissions from unscrupulous online fraudsters.
Many of the newer banner servers also display text links, and since the coding associated with served ads is normally very long; visitors are not be able to see where the redirect is heading, on the status bar.
Another way to hide your affiliate links and protect your affiliate marketing commissions, that you can also safely use in your emails; is to create a redirect link by using a sub domain on your website.
Most newcomers don’t consider fraud as being a possibility in affiliate marketing, however, it happens all to frequently, and you can protect yourself online.
The last thing you need to experience in your home based internet business, is affiliate or credit card fraud.
The people who have experienced fraud online, didn’t take the necessary steps to protect themselves.
Affiliate link, and credit card fraud occurs on a regular basis, so protect yourself and don’t you make the mistake of believing it can’t happen to you.
Whichever method you choose, it is extremely important to use some way to hide your affiliate links and protect your affiliate marketing commissions online.
Although there is lot to be gained by discretely advertising on Myspace, the downside to MySpace advertising can be quite severe if you’re not careful.
In MySpace’s terms of service, there is a section which specifies that member websites, are not supposed to be commercial in
nature.
There is a real risk for people who do advertise on MySpace, to find themselves in violation of their terms of service.
The consequences for violating their terms can be quite serious.
Members who are in violation of MySpace’s terms of service, risk the possibility of having their websites deleted. Members could also find themselves banned entirely from the MySpace community.
It’s a good ideal to carefully review MySpace’s terms of service, to see what types of advertising activities are prohibited, and what is allowed, before getting into an in depth advertising campaign.
If you have any doubt about what constitutes a commercial website, you should play it safe, and just contact MySpace directly for clarification.
Another downside to MySpace advertising, is the appearance of looking unprofessional to your potential customers.
MySpace websites can easily be created very quickly, with the templates that are available.
This sometimes prompts members that want to start immediately advertising on MySpace, to create sloppy looking, error riddled, unprofessional looking websites.
You should remember, that even though MySpace is a somewhat laid back community, where the use of slang and texting abbreviations are sometimes the norm; using this type of content on your website in addition to having a sloppy website, could not only cost your potential customers, but also your reputation.
This need not be a downside to MySpace advertising, if you maintain a high standard in the community.
Remember that everything you write about on your website, and everything that is commented about your site by others, is a direct reflection of your personal reputation in the MySpace community.
If you receive comments from members who don’t regard you very highly, it’s and indication that they don’t regard your business very highly either.
Take control of the comments left for you by either not allowing comments at all, or only allowing approved comments on your website.
Spamming, is another downside to MySpace advertising that some advertisers may find themselves accused of.
Potential customers generally hold spammers in low esteem, and will usually not purchase your products if they feel that your business is guilty of spamming.
Be careful that the advertising strategies you use, are not considered as spam, by MySpace.
Check MySpace’s spam policy to be absolutely sure that you are not in jeopardy of having your website deleted, or worse, lose your MySpace account.
MySpace could also ban you from creating any additional future accounts, if they feel that you are blatantly guilty of spamming.
MySpace can be a great place to advertise your business, just be sure that you’re aware of the downside to MySpace advertising before you begin.
The main reasons why you should use long tail keywords, is to be able to effectively compete in your market niche with the “big boys” for your share of the market.
Essentially, there are two groups of keywords that are used in search engine queries, to target types of information 
that users are trying to locate on the Internet.
Short tail keywords, that are more frequently used; and long tail keywords, that are more specific.
These keywords can also be classified as broad keywords that are normally only one or two words; and narrow or targeted keywords, that are usually phrases over three words.
Several internet marketers claim credit to the term “long tail” however, no one actually knows who coined the phrase.
The term “long tail”, is used to describe the strategy of specifically targeting the sometimes less competitive niche markets with several keywords, rather than using the broad, often highly competitive, “short tail” keywords.
When website visitors search for specific information using Google, Yahoo, or the other search engines; they will normally input more than a single keyword, to describe the information that they are trying to retrieve.
For example:
If you’re trying to get information about obtaining a low interest business credit card, you could use keywords such as ‘credit card’, ‘low interest credit card‘, ‘business credit card’, ‘low interest business credit card’, or the plural of each keyword as a search query.
The main short tail keyword ‘credit card’, is broadly focused, and has a relatively low volume of search engine results, at about 82,000,000.
A search for ‘business credit card’ is slightly more focused, and produces a slightly higher search engine result of about 113,000,000.
A search for ‘low interest credit card’ is long tailed, much more focused on what information is needed, and produces a search result of 17,500,000.
The long tail keyword ‘low interest business credit card’, is the most focused on what information is actually needed, is highly targeted, and has a search engine volume of about 1,010,000,000.
The long tail keywords queries indicated above, are the actual search results that were provided by Google as of today.
The abnormal search volume results can be attributed to the current economic conditions in our country surrounding small businesses, the banking, and the credit card industries.
As you can see, the more specific you make your search query, the better the information you will receive; therefore, optimizing your website, and creating content to match what people actually require from their search queries, will attract more visitors to your website.
People that search for information using these, and similar long tail keywords, expect to get information from your website, that coincides with their search engine query.
Here are some reasons why you should use long tail keywords to optimize your website:
- Long tail keywords, being more targeted, provide higher conversions.
Website visitors landing on your website, that use long tail keywords in their searches, are much more likely to purchase your products, listen to your recommendations, and convert on your affiliate programs. You are effectively targeting a focused market of potential buyers.
- Long tail keywords rank easier.
Because you normally have less competition with long tail keywords, it is much easier to rank your website higher with the search engines.
With long tail keywords, you can attain the number one position in the search engine rankings and maintain it.
- Long tail keywords provide a higher potential for monetization.
The targeted visitors, that are the result of long tail keyword searches, are more valuable than visitors who stumble onto your site.
They tend to click on advertising links more, purchase more products and services, subscribe to blog feeds or newsletters, become repeat customers, and in general are more consumer friendly.
- Long tail keywords will funnel more traffic to your website.
When you target long tail keywords, you will gradually attract more search engine traffic.
Your website ranking for specific keyword phrases that are related to your business website will increase, as many of your web pages are indexed, with the long tail keywords.
This results in more online visibility and a greater amount of search engine traffic.
