Check the affiliate links you're promoting occasionally

[trevord92]

A quick reminder to check any affiliate sites you're promoting.

A lot of things can happen between adding an affiliate link a year or two ago and the present day.

Like the site is no longer in existence or they've got bored and changed their affiliate program or removed it altogether.

And if you promote any $7 type products where your Paypal email is part of the link, check that as well if you've recently changed your email address.

It's a boring but potentially very profitable job!

Trevor

[Andy Fletcher]

This is very good advice.

I'd add that its also a good idea to make sure as much of your traffic as possible goes through a server you control. Its one thing to know that a site/product no longer exists but its quite another to be able to do something about it and redirect your traffic somewhere else.

Cheers,

Andy

[ryanman]

This is very true.

[Brandon Tanner]

I use a free program called SiteUp that monitors this for you and alerts you whenever a webpage changes or goes offline. Works great for this purpose.

SiteUp download and review - Web Site Availability Monitoring from SnapFiles

[Alex Sol]

Good idea.
I started promoting a CPA offer a year ago (organic traffic) and now I found out the site did not offer an affiliate program anymore. So I changed the links to a NEW similar CPA offer - and it's making $30-$40 a day... I am sure I missed out on a few $1,000's

[trevord92]

Another sneaky practice I've found recently is some sites using a different payment provider on the downsell.

For instance, one product I was promoting used Clickbank for the main product but if you try to click away and then accept the cheaper offer, it goes to a different payment processor completely, cutting the affiliate out of the equation.

Which makes checking a longer process but definitely worth doing.

Trevor

[Alexa Smith]

This is yet another reason, especially for article marketers, for not using those url-shortening/concealing services like tinyurl and bit.ly, because people can re-publish your work all over the internet and if ever you get broken links for reasons outside your control, you'll have a real problem amending/editing them.

[mcook]

That seems like very obvious advice and like a no brainer but I checked a product I am promoting on another site of mine and for some reason it was down. I think I will check all my affiliate links every month or two from now on just to be sure.

[lior1970]

This proves that there is no such thing as "auto pilot" system in internet marketing. Everything has to be checked and verified even if it is only once in 6 month.

[druwainwright]

Good advice

[Emily Meeks]

Originally Posted by Alex Sol

Good idea.
I started promoting a CPA offer a year ago (organic traffic) and now I found out the site did not offer an affiliate program anymore. So I changed the links to a NEW similar CPA offer - and it's making $30-$40 a day... I am sure I missed out on a few $1,000's

I suppose that's the benefit of getting a .99 info domain and setting up a redirect. Even if the original site goes down, you can simply change your redirect.

Originally Posted by lior1970

This proves that there is no such thing as "auto pilot" system in internet marketing. Everything has to be checked and verified even if it is only once in 6 month.

100% autopilot is a pipe dream >:P The beauty of IM is that yes, you can take a day off and not lose any sleep, but so long as you have a business to run you'll need to tend to it.