Today Im review of WP LinkShield and an interview with vendor Chris Hitman.

Review Summery:

There have been several different types of link cloaking software and plugins. At its core WP Link Shield is very similar to many of the existing solutions that exist with some exceptions that I have only ever seen in a few other products.

The first is that it can actually pull the target URL into your own domain and block any on exit pop ups. This is very important if your doing any kind of affiliate marketing because on exit pop ups are basically just a way for vendors to capture your subscribers email address even if they don’t buy the product you are promoting. In short this stops vendors from building their list from you for free. This is something that is so important that I actually created a plugin of my own to do this.
The second is that though WP Link Shield used IFRAMEs it does not break mobile responsive sites, something that many link cloaking / tracker tools that use IFRAMEs do. If your promoting a lot of offers to customers that tend to access on a mobile device this alone can be an important consideration that makes WP Link Shield worth picking up.

Now all of this is well and good but where WP Link Shield really shines is when you move past the front end version and upgrade to the pro version. Doing this will unlock some really cool extra features that make it stand out. These are features such as:

1. The ability to have the plugin automatically detect dead links. What is a dead link? Well simply its a affiliate link that no longer leads to a sales page. Unfortunately this happens a lot more than most affiliate marketers would like. Servers go down. URL’s change. Promos end. The pro version of WP Link Shield can automatically detect if your cloaked link is dead and redirect people to an alternate URL so they don’t just end up on a broken or 404 page. If your doing any kind of paid traffic this is super important as without this you might end up paying for clicks that lead to a broken URL.
2.  The ability to pull in your target URL to your own domain and add in a ‘timer bar’ with a countdown time, a call to action text, and a link over the pages you pull in. This is a useful tool to add scarcity to the offer or even to a bonus or special you are giving for people who buy though your link.
3.  The ability to add countdown timers (for scarcity) in your emails that you write that match up to the time on the scarcity bar you create with feature #2. We all know scarcity increases conversions and I have no doubt that scarcity (countdowns) in an email will increase conversions. This feature actually surprised me as I have seen stand alone products built and sold around this single feature.
4.  The ability to add ‘bonus bars’ over the cloaked pages that you pull into your domain. Bonus bars are very similar to scarcity bars except they do not have a countdown timer.

So what do I think of WP LinkShield over all? Well you really should have a link cloaker, both for ‘pretty’ looking links and also for tracking. The FE version (for sale at $39.70), while functional and useful on its own for someone that has no link cloaker,  is very similar to existing solutions and if you have an existing tool then you might not need WP Link Shield. Where WP Link Shield really becomes valuable is in the OTOs and if your willing to get the upgraded PRO version ($47) then you are going to be able to unlock the valuable features listed above that make it a great investment even if you already have an existing cloaking solution. It’s very rare that I review OTO’s but in this case I think the upgrade PRO version is where the value is and I would suggest that if your considering WP Link Shield you keep in mind that you will need the OTO to get the most valuable features (especially if you already have a link cloaking tool). When you ‘go pro’ you get an extremely flexible tool with a lot of option that is well worth considering investing in.

Bonus: As always I want my readers and subscribers to get the best value for their money. So I asked Chris to give me something extra special for anyone who grabs WP Link Shield though this review. He agreed to allow me to give away the following very cool bonuses:

-Save My List (easy autoresponder backup tool)

-WP Member Shield (plugin for delivering secure files you sell)

Both of these bonuses are high quality products that Chris and his partner have sold, not some PLR junk. I have added access instructions to JVZoo so you can get instant access when you get WP Link Shield by clicking here.

 A quick note about the reviews I do on this site. The product vendors give me access to their products for free in order for me to do my review. However I make no promises to them regarding the results of my tests or what I will write in my review. Should you click a link that takes you to a sales page for a paid product for sale this link will be an affiliate link and I will be paid a percentage of the sales price should you decide to invest in it.

About the Author

Brett Rutecky

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Brett Rutecky is a full time online marketer, web developer, and entrepreneur. He has developed scores of Facebook apps, dozens of custom web sites and hundreds of scripts.

More articles by Brett Rutecky »

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