# ProtectAffiliate — Full Content > This file contains the complete text of all public pages on ProtectAffiliate for LLM ingestion. For a structured roadmap, see /llms.txt. --- ## About ProtectAffiliate ProtectAffiliate is an affiliate revenue protection service operated by PINGTAIL PARTNERS. It monitors every affiliate link a content creator publishes — across YouTube channels, blogs, Linktrees, Beacons pages, and newsletters — and alerts them when a link stops earning commission. The core problem: affiliate links break silently. A YouTube video from 2 years ago is still ranking and getting clicks, but the product is out of stock, the merchant left the affiliate network, or the tracking tag was stripped at hop 2 of the redirect chain. The creator sees clicks in their affiliate dashboard but earns nothing. There is no error. There is no alert. The money just disappears. ProtectAffiliate makes this visible and, where possible, automatically fixes it. --- ## Key Concepts ### Affiliate tag stripping An affiliate link contains a tracking parameter (e.g. `tag=mkbhd-20` for Amazon Associates, `irclickid=` for Impact.com, `cjevent=` for CJ Affiliate). This parameter must survive every redirect hop between the creator's link and the merchant's final URL. Standard link checkers test HTTP status codes — a 200 response means the page loaded, not that the tag survived. ProtectAffiliate follows every redirect hop and validates that the affiliate parameter is present in the final URL. No other tool does this. ### Browser extension hijacking Tools like Honey (by PayPal) and Capital One Shopping are browser extensions that overwrite affiliate tags at the exact moment a visitor clicks a link — after all server-side checks have already passed. The creator sends the click with the correct tag; the extension replaces it with its own before the navigation completes. The merchant sees the extension's tag, not the creator's. The creator earns nothing. No server-based tool can detect this — it happens in the visitor's browser. ProtectAffiliate's pa.js snippet runs at click time in the visitor's browser and detects (and on Pro, prevents) the overwrite. ### Geo-routing Most creators use a single Amazon.com link. Their UK or Indian audience clicks it, gets redirected to amazon.co.uk or amazon.in without any affiliate tag, and buys the product. The creator earns nothing from that sale. ProtectAffiliate automatically routes each visitor to the correct regional Amazon storefront (17 locales supported: US, UK, Germany, India, Canada, Australia, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Netherlands, Sweden, Singapore, UAE, Poland) with the creator's local affiliate tag. One link. Every country. Full commission. ### Smart Fallback When a product link dies (404, product discontinued, merchant leaves the program), ProtectAffiliate can automatically replace it with a working fallback URL before the visitor ever sees the error. This requires the pa.js snippet and a fallback URL configured by the creator. ### Content Library ProtectAffiliate maps every link back to the specific piece of content it appeared in. It then ranks content by revenue impact: view count multiplied by the number of broken or at-risk links. A creator with 1,500 YouTube videos can immediately see which video is costing them the most money, rather than scrolling through thousands of links. --- ## Plans ### Free (permanent, no card required) - pa.link short redirect links — forever - Click analytics (country, device, referrer per link) - Hijack detection report — monthly report showing how many clicks had their affiliate tag overwritten by browser extensions, with estimated commission loss. Detection only; tag not restored. - One-time full link audit — we scan every link across every connected source and store the results. Results visible on upgrade to Starter. ### Starter — $49/month - Everything in Free - Saved audit unlocked — see every issue found on signup - Weekly scans of all discovered links - Geo-routing — 17 Amazon locales, 10,000 clicks/month - Email alerts on every incident - Stock monitoring (Amazon, Shopify) ### Growth — $99/month - Everything in Starter - Daily scans — every issue surfaced within 24 hours - Smart Fallback — dead links auto-replaced before visitor sees 404 - 50,000 geo-routed clicks/month - Slack alerts ### Pro — $249/month - Everything in Growth - Hijack prevention — pa.js restores the creator's affiliate tag at click time when an extension overwrites it - 2× daily scans — issues found within 12 hours - 250,000 geo-routed clicks/month --- ## What we detect | Issue | How detected | Plan | |---|---|---| | Affiliate tag stripped mid-redirect | Full redirect chain trace + parameter validation | Starter+ | | Browser extension hijacking (detect) | pa.js click-time observation | Free+ | | Browser extension hijacking (prevent) | pa.js tag restoration | Pro only | | Broken link (404, DNS failure) | HTTP check | Starter+ | | Product out of stock | Zyte HTTP scrape of product page | Starter+ | | Listing suppressed/removed | Zyte HTTP scrape | Starter+ | | Geo-unavailability | Workspace geo scan rotation | Starter+ | | Dead link auto-replaced | pa.js Smart Fallback | Growth+ | --- ## Affiliate networks with full detection Amazon Associates, Impact.com, ShareASale, CJ Affiliate, Awin, Rakuten, PartnerStack, Flipkart Affiliate, Admitad, ClickBank, Hotmart. Unknown networks are classified by GPT-4o-mini at scan time. Successful classifications are promoted to the detection rules database after admin review, improving detection for all future users. --- ## Legal - Operated by: PINGTAIL PARTNERS - Governing law: India - No refunds. The free plan (permanent, no card) is the trial. - Full Terms: https://protectaffiliate.com/terms - Privacy Policy: https://protectaffiliate.com/privacy - Refund Policy: https://protectaffiliate.com/refund-policy --- ## Blog Posts No posts published yet. --- ## Case Studies No case studies published yet.