The Pre-Publish Checklist for an Affiliate Article

Publishing is the moment when a small mistake becomes permanent. An untagged link or a missing disclosure does not announce itself — the page looks fine, ranks fine, and simply underperforms for as long as nobody checks.

This is the list to run before every article. Six minutes once you know it, and the first three groups catch nearly everything.

The checklist

1 · Money — five checks

• Every Amazon link carries your tag. Right-click each one, copy the link address, and read it. Do not trust the editor view — a redirect or caching plugin can serve something different from what is stored. → why links stop tracking
• The tag matches the marketplace. A -20 tag earns on amazon.com only. If the link points anywhere else, it needs that marketplace’s ID.
• Every product can be bought right now. Open each in a private window. Add-to-cart present, sold by Amazon, sane price. Discontinued items return a healthy 200, so nothing will flag this for you. → finding dead products
• No cloaked or shortened links. Amazon prohibits obscuring the destination, and redirect plugins are a common place for the tag to be lost. Amazon’s own amzn.to is the compliant shortener.
• No hand-typed prices. Prices must come from the API with the required timestamp and disclaimer. A typed price is a violation the moment it changes — which is immediately. → the price rules

2 · Trust — five checks

• The disclosure appears above the first affiliate link, in normal body text. Amazon requires the exact sentence; the FTC requires it be clear, conspicuous and before the recommendation. → the exact wording
• There is a real byline leading to a bio that establishes why this person should be believed on this subject.
• There is a “how we chose” paragraph — what you tested, what you read, how the shortlist was made. Ten minutes, and it is the strongest single addition to an affiliate page. → the honest method
• At least one image could not have come from the product listing. Your own photograph is the clearest proof of first-hand experience available. → how to take them
• The article says something negative. One real weakness of the top pick, or one group of readers told not to buy. A page where everything is excellent reads as a sales page. → why this works

3 · Findability — six checks

• Title tag and H1 say the same thing. Ten seconds, and the strongest known defence against Google replacing your title with one of its own. → the rewrite problem
• Everything distinctive sits inside the first 60 characters of the title. Brand names and “Complete Guide To” burn the most valuable space on the page.
• The meta description states what the reader gets, in 150–160 characters, without repeating the title.
• The slug is short, permanent and dateless. No year, no “-2”, nothing you will want to change later. Changing a URL after publishing costs rankings.
• Three to six internal links, inside sentences where they genuinely help — including at least one to this article from an existing page, so it is not born an orphan. → linking rules
• Every image has width and height set, descriptive alt text and a real filename. Missing dimensions are the most common cause of the page jumping as it loads. → Core Web Vitals

4 · Mobile — three checks

On an actual phone, not a narrow browser window. Most affiliate traffic is mobile and this takes a minute.

• The comparison table works — stacked into cards, or scrolling horizontally inside its own container. The page itself must never scroll sideways. → table rules
• Buttons are comfortably tappable and nothing shifts as the page finishes loading.
• The first screen shows what the page is about. If the reader has to scroll past a hero image and 400 words of preamble to learn anything, most will not.

5 · After publishing — three checks

The group everybody skips, and the only one that compounds across a whole site.

• Add one internal link from an older, established page to this new one. New posts routinely end up orphaned the moment they scroll off the homepage, and an orphan is a page you hid from your own site.
• Request indexing in Search Console.
• Write the review date somewhere you will see it. A note to check this article’s products in three months. Roundups decay faster than any other format, and nothing will remind you. → refreshing without losing rankings

The whole thing, in one block

Copy this into your editor template, your notes app, or a sticky note beside the screen.

MONEY
  [ ] every Amazon link carries the tag (read the served URL)
  [ ] tag matches the marketplace the link points to
  [ ] every product is buyable today, in a private window
  [ ] no cloaked or third-party shortened links
  [ ] no hand-typed prices

TRUST
  [ ] disclosure above the first affiliate link
  [ ] real byline, leading to a real bio
  [ ] a "how we chose" paragraph
  [ ] one image that is not from the product listing
  [ ] one honest negative

FINDABILITY
  [ ] title tag and H1 say the same thing
  [ ] distinctive words inside the first 60 characters
  [ ] meta description 150-160 chars, not a repeat of the title
  [ ] slug short, permanent, no year
  [ ] 3-6 internal links, one of them pointing here
  [ ] images: width, height, alt text, real filename

MOBILE  (on an actual phone)
  [ ] comparison table stacks or scrolls in its own container
  [ ] buttons tappable, nothing shifts on load
  [ ] first screen says what the page is about

AFTER PUBLISHING
  [ ] one internal link from an older page to this one
  [ ] request indexing
  [ ] diary a product check in three months

Why the order matters

Money first is deliberate, and it is the opposite of how most people publish — the instinct is to polish the writing, then the images, then remember the links.

But the failure modes are not equally expensive. A slightly weak paragraph costs you a little engagement. An untagged link costs you every commission that page would ever have earned, silently, for as long as it stays live. The same is true of a discontinued product: the page can rank beautifully for two years and return nothing.

Common questions