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Broken Links And A Wasted Afternoon

March 22, 2008 | Author: Steve | Filed under: Marketing

Recently, I did something that I knew about, but hadn’t done in a while. I tested some of my affiliate links. It’s something that I know I should do, but I don’t really do it on a regular basis.

What I discovered was that some of my links sent me to an error page. The error page wasn’t at the merchant’s site. It had nothing at all to do with the web sites of the products I was promoting.

It was an error page from the site that I had used to alter my affiliate links. Up until about 6 months ago, I was using a handy, free software application that would take my long affiliate links and change them into a shorter link.

I had quite a few of these links spread out over my web pages and blog. I have no way of knowing how long these links have been broken, or how many potential sales were lost.

I took the time to go through all of the content on my sites that were affected and change all of the links. I’m now going to use redirect pages with all of my affiliate links. And of course I am never going to use that particular software application again. In fact, I deleted it from my computer.

I’m not telling you not to use software or web sites to cloak and shrink your affiliate links. They work, and a lot of people are using them. I’m just saying that you should check your links regularly.

If I had been using redirect pages, I would have been able to change the link in the redirect page itself, and my content pages would still be all right.

This would be a bigger problem if I had any ebooks or special reports out there that used a link shrinking/cloaking solution. I wouldn’t be able to do anything about the links.

There are two lessons here that I want to share with you. First is to check your links on a regular basis. How often is up to you. You should test links on every new page, article, blog, or email that you create. I know that I should do it, but I didn’t.

Second, consider using redirect pages for yourself. Do a search and you’ll find all the information you need. There are free tutorials and free code you can use to create your own redirect pages. Even if you use redirect pages, remember to check your links. It could save you a wasted afternoon.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 22nd, 2008 and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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