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Links to rads.stackoverflow.com are used to redirect (e.g. to Amazon) to add Stack Exchange's affiliate cookie. I just saw a site member on "my" site mention that the redirect was failing, and it currently is. This might be a new issue, after the recent move of SO to GCP (and associated changes).

For example, clicking on this (innocent!) link:

https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B09LVFHTXH

should redirect to an Amazon product page, but instead shows a long error page which starts with:

error page when clicking link to rads.stackoverflow.com which claims that Stack Overflow is down

but despite the claim on that page, Stack Overflow is not down.

So this seems to be a bug with rads.stackoverflow.com

Can the relevant folks please investigate?

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    The main stackoverflow.com is now giving me a HTTP 500 ERROR Commented Apr 10 at 17:25
  • @Stevoisiak - Oh! I just tried it and the main SO site is ok for me. Also, the main SO site was always ok while I was doing tests before I posted this topic. Clicking amazon.com links in Q/A/C (which silently redirect via rads.stackoverflow.com) are still broken :( Commented Apr 10 at 17:29
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    It's most likely worth removing this whole redirect mechanism anyway. It was originally created to facilitate adding SE's referral code to links to make them earn a cut of subsequent purchases, but that ceased in 2019, but it was continued due to its side effect of stripping out others' affiliate referrals. That can be accomplished without the need for a complicated redirecting mechanism. Commented Apr 10 at 21:51
  • @Stevoisiak there's a similar issue about HTTP 500 error, though it should have been fixed. Commented Apr 11 at 2:37
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    I just stumbled upon a case of this bug impacting a question on GDSE too - thanks for flagging it! Commented Apr 14 at 0:59
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    This has broken a lot of my answers. If I reference a book, I usually link to its Amazon page so people can buy it. Those links are now effectively broken for people reading those answers. Commented Apr 14 at 18:51
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    @Slate The links appear to work again; can you please update? Commented May 13 at 17:41

1 Answer 1

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Additional data points:

  • There is a difference in the handling of the links for the preview in the editor .vs. the a submitted post.
  • amazon.com and amazon.co.uk are handled differently.

In Use small generator to mimic power from a CR2032 battery:

  1. The original poster added a link without the https://www.amazon.com site and therefore wasn't a clickable link.
  2. I edited the post to make the link clickable by adding a https://www.amazon.com as the site, and could follow the link in the editor preview.
  3. Save the changes, and the link is broken.
  4. Edit the post, and in the preview the link works again.
  5. Edit the post to use https://www.amazon.co.uk, and could following the link in the editor preview.
  6. Save the changes, and could still follow the link.

Broken:

Works:

So, have a potential work-around.

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