Sites and domains

A "domain" in AffyLink is a site you have told us you own. It is how we know which account a page belongs to when a reader loads it.

Adding one

Settings → Domains → Add domain. Enter the hostname only: example.com.

Do not include https://, a path, or a trailing slash. If you paste a full URL we will take the hostname out of it, but the hostname is what is stored.

www.example.com and example.com are the same site to us. Subdomains that are genuinely different sites — shop.example.com — are separate domains and use a slot each.

Pending and Installed

A new domain is Pending until we see a real pageview from it. The first time somebody loads a page carrying your script, it flips to Installed.

Pending is not an error. It means "we have not seen this working yet". If it has been pending for a while and you have definitely installed the script, Troubleshooting covers why.

Why we check the domain at all

The script carries an identifier that says which account's links to serve. If we did not check which site was asking, anybody who found that identifier could serve your links on their site — and your affiliate tag would be on their traffic.

So we only answer for the sites you have registered.

Testing on a local or staging site

Turn on testing mode for the domain. For 72 hours we will answer from any origin, so you can check things on localhost or a staging URL.

It expires on its own. That is deliberate — testing mode is the one setting that, left on by accident, would let somebody else use your links.

When you are over your limit

If you downgrade, or add more sites than your plan allows, we ask you to choose which sites stay active. Nothing is deleted. The sites you do not pick stop serving links, and start again if you upgrade.

We ask rather than choosing for you, because guessing wrong means silently switching off somebody's main site.