Actually …. just to put a different perspective on it …
I do something a little similar with links to several of my affiliate programs …
Essentially it’s a redirect to the target client with affiliate link – but it also contains a page count tracker and a bit of other stuff too …
(see http://www.goonersguide.com/power.htm for a link to Paddy Power bookmakers … although you may have to hit stop in order to read the source code)
The reasons ?
1) This method does beat some of the scumware products that substitute their affiliate ids.
2) It gives me an independant audit of clicks to a target client – allowing me to double checktheir reporting systems …
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Why would it be considered Cloaking/Black Hat/Page Hijacking. It beleive it’s a legitamate technique to verify business levels ?
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I can see that the webpages in question are a little different but they could still be counting them via web server logs or something. … you’ve got to be careful jumping to conclusions about why things are done.