Guides

For people who already run affiliate sites: keeping links earning, handling program changes, and staying on the right side of the rules.

• How to find broken affiliate links before they cost youMost broken affiliate links don't return an error. Seven ways they fail quietly, why ordinary link checkers miss them, and a routine that catches them.
• What to do when an affiliate program pauses or endsPaused, out of funds, or ended: what happens to your links and commissions in each case, and a step-by-step plan to move the traffic before it's wasted.
• FTC and Amazon disclosure checklist for affiliate sitesEight checks for every page with affiliate links: where the disclosure goes, what it says, Amazon's required sentence, and rel="sponsored".
• How to track which page earned each affiliate sale (sub-IDs on every network)The sub-ID parameter on Impact, CJ, Awin, Partnerize, Rakuten, ShareASale, eBay and Amazon, their limits, a naming scheme that works, and where to read them back.
• Why your affiliate network numbers don't match your analyticsClicks aren't visits, this month's revenue keeps changing for weeks, and two analytics tools never agree. What causes each gap, and which number to trust for what.
• What buyers check before buying a content siteTraffic access, revenue proof, data that agrees with itself, and the affiliate-specific checks most sellers forget, from Amazon's agreement to account IDs in the links.