For YouTube creators
A video you uploaded two years ago is still being recommended, still collecting views, still sending people to a description you last looked at on upload day. The sponsor page in it closed months ago. The views kept coming; the money didn't.
Check my channel freeFree · no signup · about a minute · reads your recent video descriptions.
What breaks in descriptions
Description links fail differently from blog links, because most of them point at campaigns that were always meant to end.
A branded landing page or discount code that stopped being honoured when the deal ended. The page often still loads.
A product URL pasted from the browser bar instead of the affiliate dashboard. It has worked perfectly and paid nothing since upload.
Creators lean on shorteners to keep descriptions tidy. When one is retired or its mapping is lost, every video using it breaks at once.
Doing it by hand
Open YouTube Studio, sort your catalogue by views over the last 90 days. Traffic decides which broken link costs the most.
Expand the description, open each link in a private window, and wait for the redirects to settle before judging it.
Confirm the destination is the right page and that your tracking parameter is still attached at the end of the chain.
This works. It also takes an afternoon for a mid-sized channel, and it has to be repeated — the sponsor page that's live today is exactly the one that will quietly close next quarter.
Doing it automatically
Residuals reads the descriptions of your recent videos, collects every link, follows each redirect chain to its end, checks whether your tag survived, and reads destination pages for expired-offer wording. Each leak comes back with an estimated $/mo attached — the model is disclosed alongside the results — so you fix in the order that pays. Anything uncertain is marked check manually rather than counted as a loss.
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Descriptions can be edited any time — a fix takes effect the moment you save it.
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