marketplex.net

In reference to the Cloaking Your WordPress Affiliate Links post I wrote a few days ago, I had a little accident that I should relate.

For whatever reason, maybe WordPress updated something or maybe I wrote over the file, .htaccess was reset to its initial state thereby breaking every affiliate link on my site.

I can’t claim it has affected my sales because I don’t have any, but I can imagine what it might be like if the same thing happened to a frequent seller. Mind you, I’m sure such a person would notice quicker than I did given the varying amounts at stake.

Moral of the story is to check that .htaccess file after any significant change you make to the site and also following any WordPress upgrade. Common sense really but I’d hate to be the cause of anybody losing revenue.

Also, as per Google’s request, I have made all my affiliate links “nofollow” and added an exclusion to the virtual /route/ folder in robots.txt just in case I ever forget the manual process.

Each day is a learning day.