We Tested All 129 Links on Our Coupon Pages. 6 Were Silently Broken.

Every coupon site claims its links work. We decided to prove it — and publish whatever we found, including the embarrassing parts.

On June 12, 2026 we ran an automated audit of every outbound link on every published coupon page on Class Coupon: 109 pages, 129 unique external destinations. First an HTTP check on each link, then a real Chromium browser re-test (via Playwright) of every failure, because affiliate trackers and university websites routinely block simple bots and we did not want to report false positives.

The Results

Outcome	Links	Share
Verified working (HTTP or real-browser test)	89	69.0%
Behind bot protection — could not be auto-verified	34	26.4%
Confirmed broken or silently moved	6	4.7%

The 34 “bot protection” links are mostly Udemy affiliate-tracker URLs sitting behind Cloudflare — a real browser session with a human passes; an automated one gets challenged. We flag them honestly rather than count them as verified.

The 6 Broken Links We Found (and Fixed)

What broke	How it broke	Our fix
A Udemy speed-reading course we promoted	Udemy removed the course entirely — the affiliate link landed on a 404	Retired the whole coupon page
Cambridge’s Performance Writing MicroMasters page	edX moved the program to a new URL with no redirect	Updated to the new program URL
edX financial assistance page	Page moved into edX’s resources section, old URL 404s	Updated to the new resources URL
QS World University Rankings 2025	Year-specific page retired after the 2026 rankings shipped	Repointed to the stable rankings URL
SEC investor education page	sec.gov/education quietly moved	Repointed to investor.gov
LinkedIn Pulse link	Root Pulse URL now 404s for logged-out visitors	Removed the link, kept the text

What This Says About Link Rot

None of these six links was broken when we published the pages. Course platforms reorganize URLs, retire year-specific pages, and delete courses without leaving redirects — which means roughly 1 in 20 outbound destinations silently died underneath us without a single error on our side. A coupon site that never re-tests its links is, statistically, guaranteed to be sending readers to dead pages within a couple of years.

The sneakiest failure mode: a deleted Udemy course. The affiliate tracker link still “works” — it redirects successfully — but lands on Udemy’s 404 page. Any automated checker that only follows the redirect chain reports success. You have to look at the final destination.

How We Keep Links Working

This audit is now part of our routine verification process — the same one that browser-tests every coupon code before we list it. The full methodology is documented on our How We Verify Coupons page. If you ever find a dead link on Class Coupon, it has been dead for less than one audit cycle — and we would love to hear about it via our contact page.

Frequently Asked Questions

How often do coupon site links go stale?

In our June 2026 audit, 6 of 129 outbound destinations (4.7%) had broken or moved without any notice — over a site lifetime of roughly two years. Course platforms reorganize URLs, retire programs, and delete courses without redirects, so links rot even when nothing on the coupon site changes.

How does Class Coupon test its links?

Two passes: an automated HTTP check on every unique outbound link, then a real Chromium browser re-test (via Playwright) of every failure, since affiliate trackers and university sites often block simple bots. Anything confirmed dead gets fixed or removed the same day. Our full process is on the How We Verify Coupons page.

What happens when a course is deleted from Udemy?

The affiliate link still loads — but it lands on Udemy’s 404 page. That is the worst kind of broken link because automated checks that only follow the tracker see a working redirect. In this audit we found one promoted course that Udemy had removed entirely, and we retired that coupon page rather than leave a dead recommendation up.

Featured photo by Lewis Keegan on Unsplash.