Guides
Part of Affiliate income for 2027: disclosures, real reviews and a launch plan that holds
Affiliate income checklist for the day it matters
Affiliate income checklist of twelve reviewable points: the disclosure, the terms nobody reads, the dead links, and what to do with a page that fails.
This is an audit of pages you have already published, not a plan for starting. It matters more than the starting plan, because an affiliate page keeps making a recommendation in your name for years after you stopped thinking about it.
Twelve checks. Each one has a pass condition and a fix, and the whole pass on a single page takes about fifteen minutes.
What to take away
- The recommendation is the thing being audited. The link is the easy part.
- Fix by rewriting the paragraph, not by quietly swapping a dead link for a live one.
- A page you would no longer stand behind is a liability whether or not it still earns.
How to run it
Do not audit everything. Take the pages that get the most readers, plus anything older than about a year, and work through them one at a time. Set a limit on the session so you actually finish, and record the date you checked each page as you go.
How to run the audit
- Pick top-read pages
- Add pages older than a year
- Work one at a time
- Set a session limit
- Record date checked
- Recommendation checks before link checks
- Fix failures now, not later
Two rules make the exercise honest. Do the recommendation checks before the link checks, because otherwise you will fix the plumbing on a page that should not exist. And when a check fails, fix it now rather than adding it to a list.
The twelve checks
1. Would you still recommend it? Not "is the link working", but would you say this today, to someone who asked. Fix: rewrite the paragraph, or remove the recommendation entirely and say what you would suggest instead. Leaving it because it earns is the choice that ends this income line.
The twelve affiliate checks
- Would you still recommend it?
- Have you used it recently?
- Do links resolve to the right page?
- Does the program still exist?
- Is disclosure visible before the first link?
2. Have you used it recently enough to speak about it?
3. Do the links resolve to the right page?
Worked example: a page about a camera tripod fails check 3 because the buy link redirects to the merchant's homepage. The link returns a 200 response, so a basic checker calls it healthy. You open it, see the wrong destination, update the tracking URL in your inventory, and the page passes in about four minutes.
The remaining eleven checks take the rest of the fifteen minutes.
4. Does the program still exist, and are you still in it?
5. Is the disclosure visible before the first link?
What is required depends on where you and your audience are, so check the Federal Trade Commission's short guide to disclosure for influencers if you are in the United States rather than copying what other sites do. Where a case is not obvious, the rule text behind that guide is the Guides Concerning Use of Endorsements and Testimonials.
6. Does the page say who this is wrong for?
7. Is there anything here that could not be written from a specification sheet?
8. Is the comparison against something real?
9. Is anything on the page ordered by what it pays?
10. Are the factual claims still true?
11. Does the page carry a visible date of last review?
12. Is this page in your link inventory?
The inventory the last check refers to
One table, kept outside your publishing system, with a row for every affiliate link you have live.
| Link | Page | Program | Network | Date checked | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| tracking URL for product X | /best-tripods | Program A | Network A | 12 March 2026 | Live |
Affiliate link inventory columns
- Page and link position
- Program and merchant
- Product
- Destination URL
- Date last checked
- Standing recommendation, yes or no
Without this, a program termination or a merchant switch means opening every page you have ever written. With it, it is a filter.
What to do with a page that fails badly
Three options, and choosing deliberately is the point.
What to do with a failing page
Does the subject still matter?
Rewrite it
Reduce or retire it
Rewrite it, if the subject still matters and only the recommendation has gone stale. Reduce it, by removing the commercial element and leaving the useful explanation.
That is often right for a page that still gets read, and sometimes it is the moment you notice the honest answer is something you should make yourself, as set out in digital products. Or retire it, with a note saying what changed, which is more honest than deleting a page people have linked to.
What is not an option is leaving a recommendation you no longer hold because the page still earns. Readers who acted on it will find out, and being the person who told them is worth more than the income.
Cadence
Run the twelve checks on your top pages twice a year, and on everything else once. Do the link resolution check more often if you can automate it, since that part is mechanical. Use a crawler such as Screaming Frog or a command-line spider such as wget --spider for the status part, then spot-check destinations.
Review cadence and triggers
- Twice a yearTop pages, all twelve checks
- OnceEverything else
- More oftenAutomate link resolution
- Any timeProgram closes, merchant switches, product discontinued, rules change, reader flags error
Then keep a short standing list of triggers that force an early review. A program closing, a merchant changing networks, a product being discontinued, a change to a program's content rules, or a reader telling you something on the page is wrong. The last one is the most reliable signal you will get and the easiest to ignore.
Common questions
How many pages should I be maintaining?
Fewer than you have. Maintenance is the real constraint on this income line, and a smaller set of pages you genuinely keep current beats a large set that speaks for you without supervision. The full case for treating this as kept rather than published is in the guide to affiliate income.
Should I remove a link or the whole page?
Remove the link and rewrite the paragraph. The page itself often still answers a real question, and a useful page with no commercial element is worth more than a deleted one.
Is it worth auditing pages that earn nothing?
Yes, but last. A page earning nothing still carries your recommendation, and if it is wrong it costs you the same trust as a page earning well. It also still belongs in your income records if a program is attached to it, which is part of what creator taxes covers.
How do I stop this piling up?
Write the review date and the standing recommendation into the page's own record at publication, not later. The affiliate income guide covers the habits that prevent the backlog.
