A creator reached out to me a few months ago. 194,000 subscribers, 2,200 videos, been doing YouTube for 6 years.
He thought his affiliate income had dropped because his niche was getting competitive.
I ran a full scan of his channel. Here's what we found:
- Total links across all descriptions: 47,000+
- Broken or dead links: 15,000+ (roughly 32%)
- Cause: Amazon ASIN changes, goo.gl shutdown, expired brand deals, discontinued products
He had been silently losing affiliate commissions for years. Every time someone clicked one of those 15,000 dead links — nothing. No commission. Just a 404 page.
**The math is brutal:**
If those 15,000 dead links were getting even 5 clicks/month each = 75,000 lost clicks/month. At a 3% conversion rate and $15 average order = ~$33,750 in lost commissions. Every. Single. Month.
He had no idea. YouTube doesn't tell you when a link dies.
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**Why this happens to almost every older channel:**
1. Amazon restructured their link system → old amzn.to links broke
2. Google shut down goo.gl → millions of YouTube links went dead overnight
3. Brand deals end → landing pages go offline, links stay in descriptions forever
4. Products get discontinued → product pages 404, affiliate links still live in old videos
For channels older than 2 years, expect 10-30% of affiliate links to be broken.
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**How we fixed it:**
Bulk replaced all dead links across hundreds of videos automatically. No manual editing. Took about 20 minutes total.
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Happy to answer questions about the process or the data. Has anyone else checked their old videos recently? Curious how common this actually is.
I scanned 47,000 affiliate links across a 2,200-video YouTube channel. 1 in 3 were broken.
May 25, 2026
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4 min read
Written by Nazmul Hasan Fahim
Software Developer & Founder of BrokenTube. @buildbyfahim