• http://wpgoldmine.com/?hop=gcoulson

Will now look something like this:

• http://8e7281hnz90frk2h03y6gkskpf.hop.clickbank.net/

The old links still work, but whenever you grab your affiliate link from ClickBank it will be in the new format.

Their reason is to encrypt the links so that people can’t remove your affiliate ID or so that spyware has a harder time stealing affiliate traffic.

However, this can cause problems in web sites that include downline builders where members can enter their affiliate IDs and know their downline is joining under them.

So here is a useful tool ClickBank offers that will let you decode your new style affiliate link so that you can get downline builder friendly urls.

• http://www.clickbank.com/hoplink_encoding.htm

You can also use the link to encrypt old style links if you want to protect them.  I was glad to find ClickBank had provided this as I was worried I wouldn’t be able to add new ClickBank products to our downline builder.

Garland Coulson, “The E-Business Tutor”