Amazon product links.. how to make sure those won't die

You will need to update your links as products reach end of life and are replaced.

It's Unavoidable.

Remember, you don't have to make your affiliate links directly to the product itself. You can make it to the section that the product is in, etc etc.

There are many ways around having to update for a specific model number; that is one of them.

Another way to make it easier is to have a plugin that has links based on keywords or phrases so that you can easily just go and change it there, instead of having to hunt each one down on all the pages that you will have on your site.

I myself, I create links to the section that the product can be found. So, if I am promoting green squiggly widgets, that I would create the affiliate link to the section that shows all green squiggly widgets.

The bad thing about promoting SPECIFIC model of a product is that it is NOT evergreen, and will constantly have to be updated when new ones come in, and the old ones become unavailable.

I personally do not like limiting the life span of a site or section of my sites to the whim of models.

Yes, I know the point of it all is to take advantage of the low competition that a specific model is going to have, but still, longevity far outweighs the short term of a single model.

-- Jeff

It should also be noted that you are still tagging that visitor (even if the product no longer exists). So if a visitor reaches a product unavailable page and then searches for an available product, you can still get credit for the sale.

I think it's fairly unavoidable - but at the same time. There's lots of products that remain shelved on amazon for years. In most cases, you won't lose that many sales.

Link to the search results page rather than the actual product;-)

It is an annoying problem but like co2 said they still get tagged with the affiliate cookie for 24 hours so you can still make sales. On one of my sites I didn't even realise the product was no longer available as it was making nearly as much money as when the product was available.

But I think Jeff's suggestion is a good one, link to a search page for that product term or a category etc instead because going through all the links and updating them is a real pain.

Oh and use redirects, don't hardcode the affiliate link into the page or changing them will be even harder!