I was reading in the Finch sells books (4&5) about brokered offers and how you can trace the redirects using wheregoes.com.
I'm just not sure which url to trace? My affiliate url given to me by the network?
It seems like it works sometimes and sometimes it doesn't, and what does 302 and 301 redirects mean?
Thanks!
Use your affiliate URL and the console available in Chrome or Firefox for example.
E.g. in Firefox, hit Ctrl+Shift+K and go to the console. F12 brings up Firebug which is an alternative if you have it installed.
Make sure to tick persist wherever it may be so that the logs don't self-erase.
Paste aff link into address bar and load it > console will show the headers that your browser goes through, effectively showing each step in the redirect.
If aff URL > advertiser URL = direct.
If aff URL > some other network > something else > advertiser URL = probably brokered.
What zeno said, just make sure to use a proxy or VPN to match the country the offer is for.
Many times affiliate networks have geo-redirects in place.
@bbrock32: What are the implications of a geo-redirect?
What do you mean?
A geo-redirect is just where clicks from countries X, Y & Z >> destination A and clicks from all other countries go to some other destination.
The main consequence of that is getting dicked about by traffic sources who's reviewers might get sent to the wrong page, and it wastes your time by making you have to use a VPN to check links.
Basically if network A brokers an offer for let's say US from network B the redirect flow is :
network a tracking link -> network b tracking link -> US offer
If you don't use the correct VPN ( US in this case ) you could see smth link this :
network a tracking link -> Germany offer if you browse it with a DE VPN.
This means you will be geo-redirected based on the country and might miss the redirect to network B if you use the wrong VPN.