Frequently asked questions

Affiliate link monitoring is the automated process of regularly checking every affiliate link you publish to verify it still works correctly and earns commissions. An affiliate link monitoring tool like QuietLeaks checks for 404 errors, silent redirects to homepages, expired products, dropped tracking parameters, and JavaScript-rendered redirect failures — anything that would cause a click to go untracked and commissions to be lost.

Affiliate links break for several reasons: merchants discontinue products (404 errors), merchants change their URL structure without redirecting (broken paths), affiliate networks rotate or expire link IDs, merchants update their landing pages and silently strip affiliate tracking tags, or short-link providers go offline. QuietLeaks catches all of these failure modes automatically.

A silent redirect happens when an affiliate link redirects the visitor to the merchant's homepage or a generic page instead of the intended product page — without returning a 404. The visitor reaches a "live" page so standard uptime monitors report the link as healthy, but the affiliate tracking tag is lost and you earn zero commission. This is the most dangerous failure mode because it's invisible to ordinary checking tools. QuietLeaks specifically detects destination mismatches and alerts you even when the HTTP status code is 200 OK.

Industry data suggests 5–15% of affiliate links on content sites are broken or silently redirected at any given time, especially on older posts. Product pages change frequently, affiliate network link formats change, merchants restructure their websites, and seasonal products get discontinued. The longer a piece of content stays published, the higher the chance that at least one link has quietly stopped earning.

In the context of affiliate marketing, a "broken link" is any link that fails to earn a commission — whether it returns a 404, silently redirects to a homepage, or resolves to a page without your tracking tag. A "dead link" more commonly refers specifically to links that return HTTP 404 or connection errors. QuietLeaks monitors for both, plus the silent redirect category that most tools miss.

QuietLeaks runs automated HTTP checks on each of your monitored links at your chosen interval (daily, hourly, or every 30 minutes depending on plan). It follows the complete redirect chain — including JavaScript-rendered redirects that require a headless browser — and evaluates the final destination URL. If the final URL is a 404, a homepage, or missing the expected affiliate tracking parameter, QuietLeaks flags the link as broken and sends an alert.

A QuietLeaks proxy URL is a short link (e.g. go.quietleaks.com/abc123) that sits between your content and your affiliate destination. When a visitor clicks it, QuietLeaks logs the click (recording country, device, and timestamp) and immediately redirects them to your affiliate destination. Using proxy URLs in your content means you can swap the destination affiliate link at any time from the dashboard without editing your published posts — the proxy URL in your content never changes.

Yes. Many modern affiliate tracking systems use JavaScript to build the final redirect URL at click time. Standard HTTP-only link checkers cannot follow these because they do not execute JavaScript. QuietLeaks uses a full browser environment for link checks, so it follows JS-rendered redirects accurately and detects failures that HTTP-only checkers miss.

On the Free plan, checks run daily so alert time is up to 24 hours. On Pro ($12/mo), checks run hourly so you're alerted within 60 minutes. On Agency ($29/mo), checks run every 30 minutes. All plans send an email alert the first time a broken link is detected, with the 30-day click count so you know the revenue impact immediately.

Each alert email includes: the broken URL and its label, the failure mode detected (404, silent redirect, etc.), the 30-day click count for that link, the estimated revenue impact (on Agency plan with commission tracking enabled), and a one-click button to fix the destination URL directly in the dashboard without logging in.

QuietLeaks supports every affiliate network because it monitors the destination URL rather than network-specific APIs. This includes Amazon Associates, ShareASale, CJ Affiliate (Commission Junction), Impact, Awin, ClickBank, Rakuten Advertising, FlexOffers, Pepperjam (Partnerize), PartnerStack, and any other network or in-house affiliate program. If you can paste the URL, QuietLeaks can monitor it.

Yes. QuietLeaks monitors affiliate links from AliExpress, Shopee, Lazada, Temu, and other Asian e-commerce platforms. It verifies that each link resolves to the correct destination page rather than a 404 or homepage redirect. One note: platforms that use cookie-based attribution (rather than URL tracking parameters) cannot have their attribution chain server-verified — but QuietLeaks still monitors and alerts on destination health, which catches the most common failure mode (broken or redirected links).

Yes. QuietLeaks monitors any URL, including links to merchant-run affiliate programs that don't use a third-party network. As long as the affiliate tracking is encoded in the URL (as query parameters, path segments, or a redirect through a tracking domain), QuietLeaks can monitor whether the link continues to resolve correctly.

Yes. QuietLeaks offers a permanent free plan that monitors up to 10 affiliate links with daily checks and email alerts. No credit card is required, and the free plan never expires. It's designed to let you monitor your most important links without any cost.

The Pro plan costs $12/month and includes: up to 200 monitored links, hourly checks (alerts within 60 minutes), full click analytics with country and device breakdown, Slack alerts for broken links, and 90-day click history. It's designed for active content creators and bloggers who depend on affiliate income.

The Agency plan costs $29/month and includes: unlimited monitored links, 30-minute checks (fastest detection), full REST API access for integrations, white-label shareable reports for client reporting, team management with invite and role controls, commission tracking for earnings-at-risk calculations, and 1-year click history retention.

Yes. QuietLeaks subscriptions are month-to-month with no long-term contracts. You can cancel at any time from the billing section of your account settings. After cancellation, your account downgrades to the free plan and you retain monitoring for up to 10 links.

Sign up for a free account, then go to the dashboard and click "Add links." You can paste URLs one at a time, bulk-paste multiple URLs (one per line), or upload a CSV file. QuietLeaks auto-detects the affiliate network and creates a proxy short URL for each link. Replace your published affiliate links with the proxy URLs to enable click tracking.

No — you can monitor links without using proxy URLs. QuietLeaks will still run health checks and alert you when a link breaks. However, using proxy URLs additionally enables click tracking (counts, countries, devices) and lets you swap the destination URL from the dashboard without editing your published content.

In the dashboard, click the broken link entry and use the "Fix link" button to update the destination URL. If you're using a proxy URL in your content, the fix takes effect immediately everywhere the proxy appears — no post edits required. If you're not using proxy URLs, you'll need to update the URL in your published content manually.