<b>Why your cloaked affiliate links silently rot</b>

<b>Why your cloaked affiliate links silently rot</b>

The failure mode: link cloakers default to <code>301</code> redirects on <code>/go/</code> or <code>/recommends/</code> links. A 301 is permanent and aggressively cached — by browsers, by the CDN, sometimes for months. When the affiliate network rotates your tracking URL or you switch from CJ to Impact, returning visitors keep hitting the OLD cached destination. You lose commissions and never see it in logs.

<b>Pretty Links vs ThirstyAffiliates here:</b>

Pretty Links
— Pros: per-link redirect type toggle, sane defaults
— Cons: free tier locks redirect-type choice behind Pro

ThirstyAffiliates
— Pros: 307 option, link-health add-on
— Cons: 404 checker is a paid extension

<b>My pick:</b> for a site that swaps networks more than once a year, use <code>307</code> (temporary) so nothing gets cached permanently. Slightly worse for crawl signals, far safer for revenue.

Gotcha nobody mentions: Cloudflare 'Cache Everything' page rules will cache a 301 even if your plugin sets no-cache — check the edge, not just the plugin.

<b>Bottom line:</b> 301 your evergreen links, 307 anything a network can rotate.

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