Doesn’t matter whether you are a publisher, advertiser, brand, or reader of our blog, you must be knowing the importance of affiliate links. Affiliate links are like the bread and butter of an affiliate marketing program. And Broken links are a true pain.
Without a working affiliate link, there would be no campaign to sustain or support your business. You might end up having no or less traffic, which eventually means far fewer consumers will reach your business organically to discover the importance of your business.
Thus, to keep your affiliate business streamline, it becomes essential to check for broken links regularly. These unavailable broken links can frustrate your visitors and cause them to leave your site.
But with offersoptimize, we ensure you do not have to worry about those broken links. How? Let’s find out in this blog post of ours, where we will be discussing the Broken links, how can you detect them and what are the possible ways to fix them without any hassle.
What Are Broken Links?
Broken links is the first least wanted thing that you want in any affiliate marketing campaign. It is a small nuisance that might snowball into your company, or maybe advertisers or affiliates network, losing consumers and therefore sales.
If in a running campaign, a customer clicks on the given link and it doesn’t work, the consumer will be met with a 404 Error code, No Page Found rather than the desired page that he was looking for. They may not wait for the links to get fixed, and crucially, they might end up buying nothing or not even showing up again on the brand’s website.
A broken affiliate link will put consumers off your brand entirely, as it can make your affiliates look unprofessional and your campaigns won’t fly as you wanted it to be. You could lose loyal customers as well as the hired influencers or affiliates may lose their potential viewers or content consumers too. So, in short, if the link isn’t working the audience goes to waste.
Types of Broken Links
Though the 404 error page is the most common sign of a broken link, below are a few other examples of broken links.
1. 404 Page Not Found
This indicates that the page doesn’t exist anymore on the server, but can serve a purpose for pages that have been deleted.
2. 400 Bad Request
This type of error indicates that the server doesn’t understand the URL a user is trying to reach.
3. Reset
The host server has either misconfigured the link or is too busy to process the request, so the link is dropped.
4. Timeout
The HTTP request from the link has timed out during the link check.
5. Bad Host
An invalid hostname means that the server with that name no longer exists or is unreachable at the time.
6. Bad URL
The URL itself was put together wrong and is missing a bracket, has extra slashes, or has other wrong protocols that are breaking the link.
7. Bad Code
The HTTP code is tagged by the server as violating HTTP spec.
8. Empty
This indicates that the server views the request as empty and is returning the response with no content and no response code.
Ways To Fix Broken Link(S)
Whenever you find yourself stuck with a broken link, make sure to follow the below-mentioned steps to fix them as soon as you find them:
1. Keep a regular check on your affiliate campaign to identify any broken links. And you all know now, which tool you must use, Offersoptimize. This will help you to check for the broken link on your website or landing pages. Just put the link in the search bar and get your link accessed with ease.
2. The next step is quite obvious, you may need to update the link to the correct URL. Also, we want you to ensure the newly added link is valid and functioning properly. If you are an affiliate, make sure to ask for the corrected link in the updated campaign.
3. If the targeted URL has been changed permanently, you must consider using URL Redirection. This will help the users who click on the broken link will be automatically redirected to the correct page. We also have a dedicated USP, Redirect Detective that helps to check the type of the link and where it is redirecting.
4. Lastly, don’t forget to use reliable affiliate tracking like Trackier Performance Marketing software to check the efficiency of your affiliate campaigns and how it’s working in helping your business to boost.
Conclusion
Broken links can be a true frustration or the real pain in any affiliate campaign. However, with the right approach, you can fix them. All you have to do is use our broken link finder tool OffersOptimize to detect all the inaccessible or non-existent pages. If found, by regularly monitoring and updating your affiliate links, you can enhance the credibility of your campaign and maximize its success rate.
Remember, a well-maintained affiliate campaign is built on reliable and working links, that ultimately contributes to improved user satisfaction. For any questions or queries, feel free to reach to us. We would be happy to help!
