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Managing Affiliate Links

Affiliate links are keyword-URL pairs. When AffRank’s script finds your keyword on a page, it wraps it in a link pointing to your affiliate URL.

  1. Go to Affiliate Links in your dashboard
  2. Click Add New Link
  3. Enter:
    • Keyword — the exact phrase to match (e.g., best web hosting)
    • Affiliate URL — where the link points (your affiliate tracking URL)
  4. Click Save

The script picks up the new link within seconds. Test on a page that contains the keyword.

How keyword matching works

AffRank matches the exact keyword phrase, case-insensitively, on the first occurrence per page. If your keyword is web hosting, AffRank will link web hosting, Web Hosting, and WEB HOSTING — but not web-hosting or hosting for websites.

Only the first occurrence on each page gets linked. This keeps pages from being over-linked and avoids Google’s affiliate link density guidance.

Link cloaking replaces your raw affiliate URL with a clean /go/ redirect, so visitors see https://api.affrank.ai/go/your-keyword instead of the full tracking URL.

To enable cloaking on a link:

  1. Click Edit on the link
  2. Toggle Link Cloaking to enabled
  3. Click Save

Some affiliate networks prohibit cloaking — check your program’s terms before enabling. See Link Cloaking for details.

Toggle the Active switch on any link to enable or disable it without deleting it. Deactivated links stop being injected immediately — the keyword stays in your content unchanged; it just won’t be linked.

Use this when:

  • An affiliate program goes offline or changes terms
  • You want to temporarily pause a link
  • You’re updating the destination URL and don’t want clicks going to the wrong place during the update

Click Edit on any link to update the keyword, URL, cloaking setting, or other options. Changes take effect immediately.

Click the ⋯ menu → Delete to remove a link. Deleted links are gone permanently — the keyword will stop being linked on your pages.

Click a link’s name to see its click history — total clicks, which pages drove the clicks, and click trends over time. To see revenue data alongside clicks, set up postback tracking.

Best practices

Choose specific keywords — best managed WordPress hosting performs better than hosting because it matches more intentional content and doesn’t over-link generic words.

One keyword per link — if you want the same affiliate URL for multiple keywords, create separate links for each. This gives you accurate per-keyword analytics.

Check your domain’s link limit — your plan limits how many active links your account can have. The count is shown in your dashboard. See Pricing for limits by plan.

Next steps