Verify

Link Chain Analyzer

A full redirect trace per link, hop by hop. We follow every redirect, audit every tracking parameter, and call out the exact hop where your affiliate ID went missing. Most chain failures are silent: the link returns 200, the product page loads, and the commission never arrives because the ID was stripped at hop two with no error and no warning. Available free in the Link Audit.

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What it does

Performs a real HTTP trace, not an estimate, capturing response headers, Set-Cookie events, and status codes at every hop in the chain.
Checks affiliate ID preservation at each hop using a per-network parameter map. For Impact, that is the irclickid parameter. For Awin, it is awc. For CJ, it is cjevent. Missing a network-specific ID while the URL resolves cleanly is the failure mode that ID stripping creates.
Escalates to a real Chromium browser when a link requires JavaScript to redirect. Some merchants use meta-refresh or JS navigation to reach their final URL; Layer 1 HTTP tracing alone would miss these silently.
Pinpoints the exact hop responsible for any tag loss, with the reason where the network exposes it, and flags any intermediate domain that does not belong in your redirect chain.
The Audit resolves wrapper-class layers and reports the underlying network at the chain terminus. Today it classifies Geniuslink, Lasso, Pretty Links, and ThirstyAffiliates cloaks; Bitly, Rebrandly, and TinyURL shorteners; ShopMy, MagicLinks, and Mavely aggregators; and Linktree, Beacons, Stan, Komi, Snipfeed, and Koji link-in-bio hosts. It also surfaces structural quirks: Booking.com session-only attribution (any tab switch loses the commission directly, no extension involvement needed); Hotels.com seven-day device-bound cookies; and TravelPayouts CNAME white-label, which hides the underlying network behind a custom subdomain.
The chain terminus and the cookie mechanism feed the Hijack Exposure Score, so every analyzed link carries both the failure-locator and the risk-grade in one report.

How it works

01
Paste a link
Drop in any affiliate URL. The analyzer runs in the Link Audit without extra setup. No account required for the free scan.
02
We trace every hop, in two layers
Layer 1 follows HTTP redirects and captures headers at each hop with no browser cost. If the chain requires JavaScript to resolve, Layer 2 loads the link in a real Chromium context and captures the full chain including client-side navigation.
03
You get a per-hop verdict
The exact hop responsible for any commission loss is called out, with the evidence attached. A clean chain is confirmed clean. A stripped chain shows you where and why.

What you’ll see

The Link Chain Analyzer traces every hop a click takes. Here the affiliate tag survives five hops, then a generic CDN redirect drops it at hop 6, and the analyzer flags exactly where attribution breaks.

Already using the Link Audit?

The full Link Chain Analyzer is part of the VigiLink product. Sign up to get notified when per-link trace history and bulk portfolio analysis ship.

Related features

Hijack Exposure Score

Per-link risk grade. Honey-class cookie hijack, scored and cited.

Cookie Validator

See how Safari actually handles your cookie, and what that costs you.

Cross-Browser Tester

Does your link pay out the same in Firefox? In the EU? Test it.

Beta

See this feature applied to your own links.

VigiLink is in active development. Join the beta list and we will reach out when the Link Audit opens, so you can see exactly where your affiliate IDs travel.

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Link Chain Analyzer

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