Affiliate Link Checker: What to Check Before Revenue Is Lost

Short answer: An affiliate link checker should verify HTTP status, redirect chain integrity, tracking parameter preservation, and landing page availability. Checking these regularly prevents silent revenue loss.

The 6 Things Every Affiliate Link Check Should Cover

1. HTTP status code: Status codes that point to a real problem are 404 (the page is gone), 403 (the request was blocked), and 500 (the server failed). 301 and 302 are redirects, and nearly every affiliate link uses them — they are normal. A redirect is only worth a look when the chain breaks or ends somewhere it should not.
2. Final destination URL: Follow the full redirect chain and verify the link reaches the intended partner landing page.
3. Tracking parameters: Confirm that affiliate IDs, sub-IDs, UTM tags, and referral codes survive every redirect hop.
4. Landing page content: The page should be relevant and functional — not a parked domain, error page, or unrelated content.
5. SSL certificate: Expired or missing SSL certificates will trigger browser warnings and deter clicks.
6. Response time: Slow redirects cause user drop-off. If the chain takes more than 3 seconds, consider it degraded.

How Often Should You Check?

How often a link needs checking depends on how much it earns. If you are checking by hand, look at your top earners often and the long tail less often. With PRG you don't set a frequency. Monitoring runs automatically on a schedule set by your plan, and links that look unhealthy get rechecked sooner than links that look fine. Your job is to act on the alerts, not to keep a calendar.

What to Do When a Check Fails

1. Identify the issue type (broken, redirect problem, missing tracking)
2. Estimate the revenue impact — how much traffic does this link get?
3. Fix the link URL, update the redirect, or contact the partner
4. Verify the fix by running a manual recheck
5. Set up monitoring to catch the issue if it recurs

Related: Understanding Affiliate Link Error Codes · Missing UTM Parameters Guide