Glossary
Link cloaking
Putting a long affiliate URL behind a short address on your own domain, such as /go/brand, that redirects every visitor to the same destination. It is URL masking for tidiness and control, not the ad-policy cloaking that shows reviewers a different page.
Also called: link masking, URL masking, pretty links, affiliate link cloaking, /go/ links.
A WordPress plugin such as Pretty Links or ThirstyAffiliates stores the destination and answers the short address with a redirect. You get readable links, click counts, and a single place to edit when the program changes networks. The word cloaking comes from plugin marketing: nothing is hidden from reviewers, and everyone is sent to the same place.
The difference matters when you deal with platforms and programs. Cloaking in the ad-policy sense, a filter that shows reviewers a safe page and users a different one, gets Google Ads accounts suspended without warning. Programs set their own limits on masking: Amazon's policies forbid using a link shortener or other link in a way that makes it unclear you are linking to Amazon. Masking also changes nothing about disclosure: readers still need to know the link pays you.
Related terms: Cloaking, Redirect, 302 redirect, rel="sponsored", Affiliate link.