WP All Import - Link Cloaking Add-on

The buy button is not the only affiliate link you import

An affiliate feed arrives with the advertiser link in every row: long, full of parameters and with an identifier in plain sight. It is easy to think only of the buy button of the external product. But a feed can also bring links inside the description, the excerpt or a custom field, and those reach your site just as they came.

WP All Import takes care of bringing in the rows. What is left to you is deciding which links will go out with your domain address and which will not, and this add-on gives you three modes to do it, each with a different reach.

Before ticking an option, look at the source file and find which columns carry links, because the chosen mode has to cover those places.

Three modes to decide what gets cloaked

Link Cloaking Add-On is mainly used to import affiliate links into WooCommerce external or affiliate products, so that they appear to come from your own site.

• Do not cloak: links come in as they are.
• Cloak all: acts on links present in the content, excerpt and custom fields during the import.
• Only the buy URL: limits the action to the buy URL of WooCommerce external or affiliate products.

Picking the mode by looking at your source file

If the link lives only in the buy URL, the third mode is enough and leaves the other links on the page untouched, such as those pointing to a manufacturer or a help page.

If the description carries affiliate links, the cloak-all mode reaches them, along with the excerpt and custom fields. Bear in mind that it does not sort by intent: everything in those places is included.

If the link sits in another field, neither of those two modes covers it. For that case there is the helper function pmailc_cloak_aff_links, written around the value in the import template, for example [pmailc_cloak_aff_links({link[1]})]. It also works for selective cloaking, field by field, and requires both the add-on and WP All Import to be active.

The prefix changes the shape of every link

Cloaked links are formed from your domain and an identifier. Without a prefix, they look like this: https://example.com/{link_ID}. With a prefix, like this: https://example.com/{prefix}{link_ID}.

The prefix is optional and allows up to one slash. Decide on it in the first import and keep it afterwards, so all your outbound links share one recognizable shape.

It helps to be clear about the scope. Cloaking changes the address shown on your site; the destination remains the advertiser. Click reports, link categories and broken-link alerts are not among its features: those jobs belong to a link manager.

What you need and how to run the first test

You need WP All Import and this add-on active on the same site. To import external products into WooCommerce, also use its WooCommerce add-on. This order works for a first test:

1. Open the source file and find the columns that carry links.
2. Prepare an import with a few rows, not the full feed.
3. Choose one of the three modes and, if you want one, the prefix.
4. Add the helper function to the fields the modes do not reach.
5. Run the test, open a product and click each link through to the advertiser.
6. Check that your affiliate identifier is still in the final address, then launch the full feed.

What it pairs with and what replaces it

WP All Import Pro is the importer it works on, and its WooCommerce add-on is the piece that turns rows into products.

If your links are created by hand and do not arrive through imports, Pretty Links Pro shortens and cloaks affiliate links, and also provides click tracking and broken-link alerts. For an affiliate catalog centered on Amazon, you can look at WooZone.

Three clarifications on imported links

What does cloaking a link mean?

Turning a long affiliate address into a shorter branded redirect. WooCommerce does not do this by default.

Can I cloak one specific field and leave the rest?

Yes, with the pmailc_cloak_aff_links function placed in that field of the template.

Does it work without WP All Import?

No. It is an add-on for that importer and works during imports.