Why broken affiliate links are hard to spot
An affiliate link earns you a commission when a reader clicks it and buys. If you run a review site, a niche blog, or a newsletter with an archive, those links are spread across hundreds of posts, and many were written years ago. Over that time, products get discontinued, stores reorganize their pages, merchants leave affiliate networks, and programs change their terms. Every one of those changes can quietly stop a link from paying you.
The trouble is that very few of these failures look like failures. When a product is discontinued, the store usually keeps the page up with an "unavailable" notice or sends the visitor to its homepage. When a merchant leaves a network, the network often forwards the click to the merchant's site without crediting you. A reader who clicks still lands somewhere that loads, so a standard link checker, which only asks whether the address answers, marks the link as healthy. Meanwhile the commission stopped months ago.
Checking by hand means opening every post, clicking every link, and reading where each one ends up. On a site with 300 posts and a dozen links in each, that's thousands of clicks, and it has to be repeated because links keep breaking. This is careful, repetitive work with a clear right answer for each link, which makes it a good job for an AI agent with a browser.
Kite is an AI marketer. It researches your business, builds a growth strategy, and ships the work that brings you new customers. For a site that earns from affiliate links, keeping those links working is part of that job.
How Kite finds broken affiliate links
Kite starts by building a list of every page on your site from your sitemap and your navigation. It opens each page in a real browser, so links added by scripts or plugins show up too, and it picks out the affiliate links from the rest. It then follows every affiliate link to its final destination and checks what it finds there.
Once it knows what's broken, Kite works out what each problem is likely costing you and sorts the list so the most expensive problems come first. It proposes a fix for each one, makes the fixes you approve, and checks the links again after they go live.
- How do I audit affiliate links across my website?
- How do I check whether my affiliate links still work?
- What's the fastest way to find outdated affiliate links in old blog posts?
- How much revenue do broken affiliate links cost me?
- Fix the links and update the posts
- Check again every month
How do I audit affiliate links across my website?
Kite audits your affiliate links by reading every page on your site and collecting each link that carries affiliate tracking. Affiliate links are recognizable once you know what to look for:
- Amazon links that carry your associate tag, along with amzn.to short links
- links that pass through an affiliate network's tracking address before reaching the store
- links with a tracking parameter that a merchant's own program adds
- cloaked links on your own domain, such as
/go/tent-reviewor/recommends/stove, that redirect to an affiliate link
Kite records each link along with the post it appears in, the words in the link, and the product the post says it points to. That last detail matters. A link in a post called "The best ultralight tents" that is labeled "Check price on the Trailpeak 2" should end up on the Trailpeak 2, and Kite needs to know that to tell whether it still does.
How do I check whether my affiliate links still work?
Kite checks each affiliate link by following it through every redirect to the page where a reader would actually land, then reading that page. It sorts each link into one of these results:
- Working. The link lands on the product the post recommends, the product is for sale, and your tracking ID is still in place.
- Dead. The link ends in a "page not found" error, a server error, or a store that no longer exists.
- Redirected to the wrong page. The link lands on the store's homepage, a category page, or a search results page instead of the product.
- Product unavailable. The link reaches the right product page, but the product is out of stock, marked as discontinued, or replaced by a newer model.
- Tracking lost. The link reaches the right product, but your affiliate tag or tracking ID was dropped along the way, so the sale won't be credited to you.
Some stores refuse automated visits or show a security check. When Kite can't get a clear answer from a store, it lists that link as unconfirmed rather than calling it broken, so you can check those few by hand.
What's the fastest way to find outdated affiliate links in old blog posts?
The fastest way is to check the links that earn the most first, because a broken link on a post that gets 5,000 visits a month costs far more than one on a post nobody reads. Kite orders the audit that way when it can see your traffic.
Kite also looks for links that technically work but recommend something out of date. A buying guide that still links to last year's model, or calls a product the "best budget option" when the store now lists it at twice the price, is sending readers somewhere they're less likely to buy. Kite flags those posts separately from the broken links, because the fix is often a content update rather than a new link.
How much revenue do broken affiliate links cost me?
You can estimate what a broken link costs by multiplying the page's monthly visitors by the share who click the link, the share of those who buy, and the commission you earn per sale. Kite makes that estimate for each broken link so you can see where the money is going.
Say your post on camping stoves gets 3,000 visits a month and its main link has stopped crediting you. If 8% of readers click it, that's 240 clicks. If 5% of those buy, that's 12 sales, and at a commission of $4 per sale you're losing about $48 a month from that one link. Across a few dozen broken links on popular posts, the total adds up quickly.
Kite gets the page traffic from its built-in analytics on a site it hosts, or from Google Analytics or Google Search Console when you connect them. For click rates and commissions, it uses the figures you give it from your affiliate dashboards. If you don't have those figures handy, Kite uses a stated assumption and tells you which numbers are estimates, so the ranking stays useful even when the dollar amounts are rough.
Fix the links and update the posts
Kite proposes a specific fix for each problem rather than handing you a list:
- A link to a product that moved. Kite replaces it with a link to the product's current page, with your tracking ID in place.
- A link that lost your tracking. Kite rebuilds the link so it carries your tag again.
- A discontinued product. Kite suggests the closest current replacement, such as the newer model of the same product, and links to it.
- A program that closed or changed. Kite looks for the same product through another program you belong to, or suggests a different store that carries it.
- A cloaked link. When many posts share one redirect on your own domain, Kite points out that fixing that single redirect repairs every post that uses it.
When a fix would change what a post recommends, such as replacing the product you named as your top pick, Kite drafts the updated section and brings it to you, because that changes your verdict and not just a link. On a site Kite hosts, the fixes wait as unpublished changes that you can preview before anything goes live. If your site runs on Webflow or self-hosted WordPress, Kite makes the changes through your connected account.
Check again every month
Affiliate links keep breaking as products and programs change, so a single cleanup only stays accurate for a while. You can ask Kite to repeat the audit on a schedule, such as the first Monday of every month. Each run compares the results with the last one, so you see only the links that broke since then and whether last month's fixes are still working.
Kite also records each affiliate program you belong to in your team's knowledge base, along with its terms as you've shared them or as Kite finds them published. When a program's terms change or it closes, that record helps Kite find every post that depends on it.
For broken links that aren't affiliate links, such as links between your own pages, see Find broken links and broken signup paths.
What you get
An affiliate link audit
Every affiliate link on your site, the post it's in, the product it should reach, where it actually lands, and whether it's working, dead, redirected to the wrong page, pointing to an unavailable product, missing your tracking, or unconfirmed.
A list ranked by lost revenue
The broken links sorted by what they likely cost you each month, with the traffic and assumptions behind each estimate.
A list of outdated recommendations
Posts that still recommend old models or out-of-date prices, with suggested updates.
Fixes, ready to publish
Replacement links, restored tracking, and updated post sections, which go live once you approve them.
A monthly re-check
The links that broke since the last audit and confirmation that earlier fixes still work.
How to get started
Tell Kite what you want in plain language. You might say, "Find every broken Amazon link on our site," or "Audit the affiliate links in our buying guides and tell me which broken ones cost us the most." You can work with Kite in your browser or in Slack.
Kite can audit the links on any public website without anything connected. To rank the problems by revenue, connect Google Analytics or Google Search Console, or let Kite use its built-in analytics if it hosts your site, and share your commission rates for your main programs. To have Kite fix the links on a site it doesn't host, connect Webflow or self-hosted WordPress.
Kite shows you the audit and the fixes it proposes before anything changes on your site. Approve them, and Kite makes the updates. Once you trust its fixes for routine problems, such as restoring a missing tracking tag, you can let it make those on its own.
Integrations used to find broken affiliate links
Kite follows and checks your affiliate links with its own built-in browser, so the audit itself needs nothing connected. Connections help in two places: showing which pages earn the most traffic, and fixing links on a site Kite doesn't host.
See which pages matter most
Common questions
Is there a free way to find broken affiliate links?
Yes. A free broken link checker will find affiliate links that lead to a missing page or a dead store, and it's a reasonable first pass. It won't catch links that redirect to a homepage, reach a discontinued product, or lose your tracking ID along the way, because those all load without an error. Those quieter failures are usually most of the problem. Kite checks for all of them and then fixes what it finds.
How do I find broken Amazon affiliate links?
Check that each Amazon link still reaches the product you recommended, that the product is available, and that the link still carries your associate tag. Amazon rarely shows a "not found" page. It's more likely to show "Currently unavailable" or send the reader to a different listing. Kite follows each Amazon link, including amzn.to short links, reads the product page, and flags the links where the product is gone or your tag is missing. Amazon sometimes blocks automated visits, and Kite lists any links it couldn't confirm so you can check them yourself.
Can I use ChatGPT to find broken affiliate links?
ChatGPT can explain how to audit your links, and it can check a link or two if you paste them in. In an ordinary chat, it doesn't crawl your whole site, follow every link to the end, or keep track of which posts changed since last month. Kite does the full audit across every page, ranks the results by what they cost you, and makes the fixes on your site.
Can Kite check that my affiliate disclosures are in place?
Yes. While Kite reads each page for affiliate links, it can also note the pages that carry affiliate links but have no disclosure telling readers you earn a commission. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission expects that disclosure to be clear and close to the link. Kite lists the pages that are missing one and can add a disclosure line to them once you approve the wording.
I run an affiliate program for my own product. Can Kite help with that?
Yes, and that work is different from auditing links on your own site. Running a program means recruiting partners, sending them materials, and checking commissions before you pay them. See Run an affiliate program for how Kite handles it.