When using affiliate links in the WordPress website, be rest assured that they would start becoming broken with the passing of time. This happens because of the URL changing scenario of websites mostly. Other factors that result in broken links include discontinuity of products, use of different systems, and more importantly, swapping for affiliation management.
Whatever may be the cause, the entire scenario could be highly annoying. After all, not every company would get you notified regarding the email that has been sent by them. That is the reason it becomes essentially important to audit each and every affiliated links for your website frequently. However, you should never opt for simple pasting of the affiliated links rightly into the posts. That could lead to some kind of trouble. Rather, it would always be a better option to use some kind of a suitable plugin to handle the affiliate link management issue.
Thirsty Affiliates is definitely one of the most effective affiliates that could help in monetizing your blog site with the best plugins, advice, and affiliate links. Most of the plugins have a tendency to save the redirected URLs into the .htaccess file directory.
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Developing a Perfect List of the Affiliate URLs for Your Site
First of all, it is exceedingly crucial to get he .htaccess file downloaded from the website root folder. Try to figure out the redirected affiliated links. These links would look similar to this:
Try to extract the correct URLs to figure out whether they have been broker or presently live. There are tools like URL extractor and others available which could make the task lot easier. Once the URLs are extracted, paste them in a separate file (ensure an entirely new and blank file is used). After pasting, save the file with .html extension. Now the most important part! Get the file uploaded online to the website from where it could easily be made accessible. This would make it easy enough to get the file tested.
Dead Link URL Testing
You need to also check the URLs to figure out about the presence of dead links. There are again, lots of plugins available that could be helpful in testing the dead links. One of the more efficient plugins is Dead Link Checker. Using this plugin is simple and easy. Simply enter the URL name of the particular file that has been created with the affiliated URL enlisting. Now, select QUICK SCAN to test for URLs Deal Link within a single web page. However, before clicking OK, it is necessary select the AUTOMATICALLY RETRY DEAD LINK box and then click on the CHECK button for the scanning process to commence. It would primarily depend upon the total number of links that needs to be checked. Remember, it would take some time to get with the process before the report is generated.
Stop Worrying About Errors
It’s quite obvious that errors would appear in the process. Some of the most common errors include 404 – page not found, 400 – bad request, and not found, timeout. It is advisable to make a list of the bad URLs and save it for future reference. In fact, it would allow you the option to manually go through each of these bad URLs to learn about their problems while trying to rectify, if possible. It is necessary to learn about the root cause of the problem. Also, what type of problem is creating the scenario needs to be known. There are also those errors that take place due to closure of companies or for those who have changed their affiliates.
Once you figure out the sites that have been closed as well the ones that have made some modification to the affiliate programs, it definitely makes sense to sign-up for a new affiliate program. While signing up, definitely change those links in the Link Manager. You can simply delete the links for websites that have been closed. Swapping is also an option to replace the closed links.
Removing Broken Links Quickly
Error 404 could be the worst nightmare for the webmaster. It hampers the reputation severely. Redirecting the traffic to an address that presently not exists could be frustrating. Although there are quite a few bloggers who don’t focus more into broken links, the issue should never be overlooked. What matters most is handling the situation with smart approach to ensure that people are not been redirected to closed URLs. It is all about driving people away from those broken links. It definitely is highly frustrating when your site fails to load and displays Error 404. In order to build up the interest level, it is necessary to rectify the broken link issues and remove them at the earliest.
Broken Link Checker Could be Effective
Broken Link Checker is a highly stable and effective plugin that promises simple and easy to use functionality. This small plugin is high effective to test every single link available at your site while crawling through the content. It would make it a point that each of the links get resolved to the defined URL in a positive way. In case, the plugin finds some sort of problem, it would mark the link and get it added to the Broken Link list. This would help in dealing with these broken links in the near future.
Quick Links
Conclusion
Whatever be the situation broken link is harmful for website ranking, thus we should always take care of such kind of issues time by time. However tips suggested above is simplest way to track down all the broken links and get rid of them.
