Important Note: This plugin hasn’t been updated in over 4 years, therefore this review is now out of date. Sadly, it would appear that the developer has abandoned ship on this one. I am no longer using Better Links Pro, I’m now using Pretty Links. Better Links Pro is also no longer available to purchase.

When it comes to using affiliate links on your site, there are two ways to do it.

1. The first method is to use naked, long, untidy looking URLs for complete transparency.
2. The second method is to create a short version of your affiliate links through a process called cloaking.

Today I want to share with you my review of a really useful and powerful affiliate links plugin for WordPress called Better Links Pro.

This is the plugin I use on my blog for taking care of all my affiliate links.

In fact, I’ve been using this plugin since I discovered it in 2013.

Unfortunately, the plugin hasn’t been updated for a long old while, which is a bit of a shame.

What is Better Links Pro?

Better Links Pro is a premium affiliate link cloaking WordPress plugin designed to help you not only clean up your busy and cluttered affiliate links but to also track their performance too.

There aren’t very many premium quality link cloaking plugins around in all honesty. The only ones that I’ve used in the past are Pretty Links Lite and Better Links Pro.

So anyway, Better Links Pro was created by Chris Guthrie, a blogger, and entrepreneur you might have come across at some stage, or not.

Chris is also the co-creator of another popular plugin called EasyAzon 4 plugin Amazon affiliate plugin, which I reviewed some time ago here.

What can Better Links Pro help me do?

Asides from cleaning up your long, busy-looking affiliate links, you also get access to a bunch of options with Better Links Pro. Let’s take a look at them below.

#1. Save time – Most affiliate bloggers and marketers will agree that time is money, right? So Better Links Pro is designed to help you save time.

Everything can be done from inside the editor. For example, let’s say you’re working on a brand new product review article and you want to add some affiliate links.

Normally, you would have to leave the post you’re working on, find the affiliate links you want to add, then shorten them with some kind of external service, then paste them into your content.

How much time have you just wasted doing all of that?

With Better Links Pro, on the other hand, you can do all of those things from within the editor, you don’t have to leave the page you’re working on in other words.

#2. Have more control over your links – When you shorten a link in Better Links Pro, you instantly have greater control over how you want your links to behave.

You can change link attributes and organize your links into categories even.

As you can see from the screenshot above, you can also choose single, multiple or geographical destinations. This is especially useful if you have more than one affiliate link for a particular product or service.

You can also add some basic information about your links, and create a memorable slug for it too.

#3. Track affiliate link performance – With Better Links Pro you can track click counts to help you determine which pieces of content are converting the best and which aren’t.

#4. Replace keywords into affiliate links with a single click – With Better Links Pro, you don’t have to go and manually replace keywords into affiliate links to each and every post on your blog. You can simply add the keywords or phrases into the box (as shown below) you’d like to have changed into an affiliate link, and the plugin will do it for you in one go.

Once again, this is a feature that will save you a ton of valuable time, right?

A full list of useful features

OK, so let’s take a look at all the options and features that come with Better Links Pro. You can grab this plugin here, by the way.

1. Create a simple link redirects to single destinations.
2. Create link redirects based on geographic destination (allowing you to capitalize on traffic from foreign countries).
3. Create link redirects to multiple destinations (Redirects are split evenly between multiple URLs).
4. Automatically replace the keywords in your blog posts/pages with the links you create (Saving you time having to manually drop links yourself).
5. Single post or page advanced tracking, authenticate with Google Analytics (Great for identifying which links are performing well and which links you need to improve upon for increasing clicks, of course, the more clicks, the more opportunities you will have at increasing your affiliate marketing sales).
6. Create 301, 302 or 307 redirect links.
7. Mask those ugly long URL’s and turn them into nice clean ‘memorable’ URLs.
8. Control how your links behave i.e. opens in a new window, make no-follow to not pass page rank and link juice, etc.
9. Keep an eye on the number of clicks over 30 days to see which links are performing well and which need more visibility.
10. Purge clicks that are older than 30 or 90 days.
11. Create links quickly inside the WordPress post editor (Saving you a ton of time having to drop or create affiliate links manually).
12. Create categories for the link redirects you create (Great for grouping your links i.e. web hosting links, WordPress themes links, etc)

So as you can see this plugin is very well packaged.

I’ve been using Better Links Pro now for almost 3 years, and I love it. It really is the ultimate affiliate plugin in my opinion.

Pros And Cons

Pros

1. Very affordable.
2. Lightweight.
3. Simple click-counter built-in.
4. Saves users a lot of valuable time (Big selling point).
5. Authenticate with Google Analytics for advanced tracking.

Cons

1. Missing more detailed reports.
2. Can’t export click database.
3. You only get 1 year worth of updates.
4. The plugin hasn’t been updated in over 3 years.

So, now the burning question is…

How does Better Links Pro compare to Pretty Link Pro?

Let’s take a look, shall we?

Better Links Pro VS Pretty Link Pro

The Better Links Pro plugin is feature-packed and extremely user-friendly. That being said, the Pretty Link Pro plugin offers a few more additional features that just might tempt you.

For instance, you can get clearer-detailed click reports, create conversion reports, export click database and you also get access to some social sharing tools for your links, all with the Pretty Link Pro plugin.

Even with the additional features though, there’s a pretty big price difference between Better Links Pro and Pretty Link Pro. Better Links Pro with Developer rights will set you back $37, whilst Pretty Link Pro with developer rights will set you back a hefty $97.

Both Pretty Link Pro and Better Links Pro come with a 1-year worth of updates.

I think that’s something worth considering when purchasing any premium plugins for WordPress.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a light-weight and affordable affiliate links plugin, with some simple-to-use built-in options and features, then head over to Better Links Pro and grab this plugin.

If you’re looking for a link cloak plugin with perhaps a few more features, then check out Pretty Link Pro.

Both these plugins are great in their own corner. I love Better Links Pro personally because it’s really easy to use, it’s lightweight, and it saves me an enormous amount of time when monetizing my blog content.

I’ll leave you to decide on which to use for your affiliate marketing ventures.

Recommended Reviews

1. EasyAzon 4.0 Affiliate Marketing Plugin For Amazon Review
2. Thrive Ultimatum Scarcity Marketing Plugin Review
3. Social Warfare Review