01/Blog
Notes onaffiliate links.
Writing on broken links, creator income, and the occasional product update from the lab.
- Insight
What ChatGPT shopping queries are doing to affiliate creators.
Shopping queries on ChatGPT grew faster than any other query type in 2025. AI chatbots now perform the same job affiliate creators built businesses around: comparison, recommendation, deal hunting. The click that triggers a commission increasingly never happens. Here's what changed, what you can measure, and what still works.
8 min read·Read → - Insight
Amazon Associates April 2026 policy: what changed, what to fix
Three changes hit hardest: the 180-day qualification rule, reduced onsite halo commissions, stricter original-content rule. What each costs and the fix.
8 min read·Read → - Insight
Affiliate cookie window explained: how long you have to earn the commission.
A click on your affiliate link doesn't guarantee a commission. The cookie window is how long the buyer has to convert before the credit drops. Here's how it works, what each major network offers, and what to do when the window is too short.
6 min read·Read → - Insight
Affiliate dashboards lie by omission. The leak you can't see.
Your dashboard shows clicks that converted. It never shows clicks that hit a 404, a sold-out page, or a stripped tag. The leak in your income is structurally invisible to the tool you trust most.
6 min read·Read → - Insight
How affiliate links silently die. And how to notice before it costs you.
Affiliate income rarely stops on a Tuesday. It drips away. 3% this month, another 4% next. Until you realize six months too late that your best-performing link has been dead since February.
6 min read·Read → - Insight
Reviving old affiliate content: the highest-leverage work you're not doing.
A three-year-old review video that still gets daily views is an asset most creators ignore. Reviving its affiliate links can earn more than producing new content. Here's the math, and how to do it without re-shooting anything.
5 min read·Read →