How To Track Links in Articles on Other Websites

If the same offer is linked from articles on three different websites, the publishers' page-view numbers won't tell you which one sends people through, because reading an article and clicking your link are two separate things. You can measure those clicks without installing anything on the publisher's website, as long as you choose the link that goes into the article, while tracking the sales that follow needs a separate connection to the business taking the payment.

We use this ourselves for articles we publish outside TGK, on platforms and partner sites where we never see the analytics, and it’s been the most reliable way to tell which of those articles are worth repeating and which ones are just sitting there.

Quick Answer

To see which article sends people to an offer, give each one a separate tracking link and compare its click report with the others. Affiliate sales and commissions need the network's supported article label, usually called a SubID or ClickRef. UTM tags help when you can access the destination website's analytics; they don't give you access to somebody else's reports.

Which Tracking Method Do You Need?

Because a tracking link records the request before redirecting the visitor to your destination, the measurement happens outside the publisher's website. The publisher and, for affiliate promotions, the programme still need to allow the link.

Track Clicks With One Link Per Article

With Short.io's free plan, you can start tracking links without buying a domain or hosting a website, using its provided short domain, and the plan gives you 1,000 links in total and 50,000 tracked clicks a month, with detailed statistics for the first 50,000 clicks (checked on 1 November 2026).

For three articles recommending the same pair of headphones, use link names that identify where each article appeared and what it covered:

Here is the setup, following Short.io's link-creation instructions:

1. Create an account and select the provided short domain.
2. Paste the destination URL. For an affiliate offer, paste the complete affiliate link you were given.
3. Change the short link's ending to site-a-headphone-review, then save it.
4. Copy the generated short link and put it in Site A's article. The visible text can still say "View the headphones."
5. Create or duplicate links for Sites B and C, giving each a different ending even when they lead to the same offer.
6. Click the link from the published article, check that it reaches the right page, then open the chart icon beside it in Short.io's link statistics.

Keep a small record of the article URL, its tracking link and the date it went live. Don't reuse Site A's link in a newsletter, because those newsletter clicks would end up in the same report.

You can also separate two links within one article with endings such as site-a-review-top and site-a-review-end, though one link per article is enough until you need that extra detail.

Keep the Original Affiliate Link Intact

When you shorten an affiliate link, use the complete URL supplied by the programme, because it contains the information used to credit the publisher.

Say your affiliate programme gives you this link:

https://affiliate.example/click?publisher=123&offer=456

Paste the whole address into the shortener's destination field. If you copy the shop's final address after opening the affiliate link instead, you can end up with an ordinary product URL, because the browser may already have passed through the tracking step.

Why Does the Referral Code Disappear?

A referral code can disappear from the address bar after the click has been recorded and the tracking information saved in a cookie, as Awin's explanation of cookie tracking describes.

To confirm a commission, check the network's reports rather than the address bar, and follow its approved test procedure when validating sales tracking.

Add an Article Label for Affiliate Sales

Using a recognisable label such as site-a-headphone-review in the affiliate link lets the network group its activity under that name. Depending on the network, the field is called a SubID or ClickRef.

In Awin's Link Builder:

1. Open Toolbox → Link Builder and select an advertiser whose programme you have joined.
2. Enter the product page you want to promote.
3. Add site-a-headphone-review in the click-reference option, then generate the affiliate link.
4. Use that generated link in the article, or as the destination behind your separate short tracking link.
5. Open Reports → Click References and select your dates.

Awin's Click References report shows clicks, transactions, sales amounts and commission by reference, and its naming guidance recommends recognisable labels of no more than 50 characters. If that report already gives you the click breakdown you need, you can skip the shortener.

Since networks use different fields and rules, adding ?subid=article-a to an arbitrary shop URL won't create tracking unless the programme supports it. When a partner owns the affiliate account, ask them to generate an article-specific link and share its report with you.

When UTM Tags Help

For articles linking to your own website, UTM tags let its analytics identify where the visits came from. Use this pattern, replacing the placeholder domain and page with yours:

https://your-site.example/headphones?utm_source=site-a&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=headphones&utm_content=review

Here, site-a identifies the publishing website, referral describes the channel, headphones groups the campaign and reviewidentifies the article.

With Google Analytics collecting data on the destination site, source, medium and campaign appear in Traffic acquisition. The article label in utm_content maps to Session manual ad content, which you can use in a report or exploration. If the URL already contains a question mark, additional parameters start with &.

Putting those tags on somebody else's shop URL won't give you a report you can read unless the owner shares it or gives you access to their analytics.

Read the Numbers Without Fooling Yourself

An article with 120 recorded clicks has produced more measured clicks than one with 30 over the same period, but you still need page views to calculate their click-through rates.

Short.io separates reported human and bot activity, although the remaining count can include repeat clicks and your own tests, so it doesn't mean a different interested reader every time.

For a paid placement, divide what you paid by the recorded clicks, so a $90 placement that brought 30 clicks cost $3 per recorded click, and whether that paid off depends on the revenue it brought in and your other costs.

Keep recorded sales, approved commissions and paid commissions separate when the network provides those statuses, since a transaction can be recorded before its commission is approved.

The shortener and the affiliate network may also report different click totals because of filtering, reporting delays or a blocked redirect, so check the date ranges and the saved destination URL before deciding that clicks have disappeared.

A record of what a placement sent through is far more useful when you're buying traffic than a publisher's Domain Rating or Domain Authority, and it's worth remembering that a recorded click doesn't confirm the page loaded or that a sale was credited, which is why the network's tracking checks matter for affiliate sales.

Our Take

If you’re testing an online business idea with articles on Medium, LinkedIn, partner blogs or paid placements, a separate tracking link for each one is the simplest way to see which of them send people through. Before you put more money or time into any of them, compare what each one cost you with the clicks it brought. Add article-level commission reporting once you need to know what those clicks earned, because the articles that bring the most visitors aren’t always the ones that make you money.

Questions About Link Tracking

Can I See Clicks From Before I Added Tracking?

Only if the publisher, destination site or affiliate network already recorded usable data and can share it. A new tracking link starts collecting from the point it is used and can't reconstruct earlier clicks.

What If I Cannot Change the Published Link?

Ask the publisher to replace it or provide an existing report. If the old URL is already a tracking link you control, you may have data in its dashboard; otherwise, creating a new link somewhere else won't measure those clicks.

Will a Publisher Accept a Short Link?

Most will, but some publishers and affiliate programmes don't allow shortened or redirected links in sponsored content, so it's worth asking before you send the article. If they refuse, an affiliate link with its own SubID or ClickRef still gives you article-level reporting without the shortener.