I scanned 47,000 affiliate links across a 2,200-video YouTube channel. 1 in 3 were broken.

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. --- **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. --- **How we fixed it:** Bulk replaced all dead links across hundreds of videos automatically. No manual editing. Took about 20 minutes total. --- Happy to answer questions about the process or the data. Has anyone else checked their old videos recently? Curious how common this actually is.