Affiliate application packet

the site owner Affiliate Signup Handoff

Status: not ready to submit applications yet; local site now has a 10+ researched-article base, but still needs a public URL/domain, final trust-page details, the site owner approval to publish/apply, and final manual checks on any pages used as application examples.

What the site owner needs to sign up for first

Recommended order:

1. Travelpayouts — broad travel inventory for hotels, flights, cars, insurance, and activities.
2. GetYourGuide — activity/tour intent for rainy-day, city, and national park logistics pages.
3. Booking.com Affiliate Partner Program — lodging-heavy pages such as where-to-stay and weekend trip guides.
4. Amazon Associates — optional later only if Getaway Brief adds packing-list or gear pages.

Information the site owner should have ready

For each affiliate application, the site owner will likely need:

• Legal/business name to apply under.
• Contact email controlled by the site owner.
• Public website URL or deploy-preview URL.
• Site name: Getaway Brief.
• Site category: travel guides / lodging and activity planning.
• Short site description: "Getaway Brief publishes practical travel guides that help readers choose weekend trips, lodging areas, and bookable activities with less friction."
• Traffic estimate: honest early-stage value, likely zero/early launch until published.
• Promotional methods: SEO content, internal links, email/contact page only if later added; no paid traffic unless separately approved.
• Countries/audience: primarily US travelers to start.
• Disclosure URL: /affiliate-disclosure.html once deployed.
• Privacy URL: /privacy.html once deployed.
• Contact URL: /contact.html once deployed.
• Editorial policy URL: /editorial-policy.html once deployed.
• How-to-use/method page: /how-to-use-tripsignal.html once deployed.
• Affiliate readiness summary: /readiness.html once deployed.
• Research status page: /research.html once deployed.
• Research audit page: /research-audit.html once deployed.
• Article evidence matrix: /evidence-matrix.html once deployed.
• Claim review queue: /claim-review.html once deployed.
• Fact-check queue page: /fact-check-queue.html once deployed.
• Research standard page: /research-standard.html once deployed.
• Publish-candidate gate: /publish-candidate-gate.html once deployed.
• Final verification plan: /final-verification-plan.html once deployed.
• Analytics plan: /analytics-plan.html once deployed; privacy-friendly analytics only, with local builds tracking-free and GA4/Google Analytics avoided unless the site owner explicitly approves it.
• Affiliate placement policy page: /affiliate-placement-policy.html once deployed.
• Partner link implementation map: /partner-link-map.html once deployed.
• Affiliate program fit matrix: /affiliate-program-fit.html once deployed; use this to choose the first program class without overclaiming article readiness, traffic, prices, or availability.
• Affiliate signup field notes: /affiliate-signup-fields.html once deployed.
• Affiliate signup go/no-go checklist: /affiliate-go-no-go.html once deployed; use this as the final decision surface before any external application is submitted.
• Affiliate signup readiness scorecard: /affiliate-readiness-scorecard.html once deployed.
• Affiliate safety audit: /affiliate-safety-audit.html once deployed.
• Trust page finalization checklist: /trust-page-finalization.html once deployed; use this before public preview or affiliate applications to replace placeholder contact/privacy/disclosure/editorial details with the site owner-approved language.
• Public preview approval packet: /public-preview-approval.html once deployed or staged; use this as the the site owner approval surface before turning the local build into a public preview.
• Representative page shortlist: /representative-page-shortlist.html once deployed.
• Representative page evidence packet: /representative-page-evidence-packet.html once deployed.
• Representative page verification template: /representative-page-verification.html once deployed.
• Pre-launch fact-check tracker: FACT_CHECK_QUEUE.md in the repo.

Current local proof points

• 14 local guides generated into static HTML: 14 researched, demand-backed drafts as of 2026-05-25; 0 are marked publish_candidate.
• 5 cluster pages generated from article data: no-car, dog-friendly, rainy-day, warm-winter, and couples.
• Standard trust pages generated: About, Contact placeholder, Privacy placeholder, Affiliate Disclosure, Editorial Policy, and How to Use Getaway Brief.
• Research status page generated at /research.html, surfacing demand evidence and factual source notes for every local guide.
• Research audit page: /research-audit.html, summarizing evidence coverage, official-source coverage, source URL blocker language, time-sensitive final-check language, and remaining blockers from local metadata.
• Article evidence matrix: /evidence-matrix.html, a generated per-article table showing demand-note count, source-note count, official-ish source mix, source URL blockers, research brief presence, and the publish-candidate gate state.
• Claim review queue: /claim-review.html, a generated exact-page QA queue that keeps demand evidence separate from factual source support and lists article-specific checks before any promotion.
• Article page status ledger: /page-status-ledger.html, a generated operations table showing each guide's status, demand/source-note counts, placeholder CTA count, research brief link, and next verification action before affiliate-application use.
• Source health page: /source-health.html, generated from research/SOURCE_HEALTH.md, showing current reachability of factual source-note URLs. Latest local QA on 2026-05-25 has 71/71 unique source URLs reachable, 76/76 source-note references reachable, and 14/14 articles clean on URL health, while manual factual checks are still required before representative-page use.
• Source recheck queue: /source-recheck-queue.html, generated from research/SOURCE_RECHECK_QUEUE.md, listing all 76 article source-note checks and flagging same-week/manual-sensitive claims before representative-page use.
• Source-gap priorities page: /source-gap-priorities.html, generated from research/SOURCE_GAP_PRIORITIES.md, ranking the next official/primary checks needed before representative pages can be used in affiliate applications.
• Fact-check queue page generated at /fact-check-queue.html, surfacing pre-publication blockers and making clear that researched drafts are not publish candidates.
• Research standard page generated at /research-standard.html, documenting demand/source requirements and status labels.
• Publish-candidate gate generated at /publish-candidate-gate.html, documenting the exact final checks required before a researched draft can be promoted to publish_candidate or used as an affiliate-application example.
• Final verification plan generated at /final-verification-plan.html, prioritizing the representative pages to verify first and listing exact per-page source checks before any publish_candidate promotion.
• Analytics plan generated at /analytics-plan.html, preserving the privacy-friendly measurement posture: local builds stay tracking-free; Plausible/Umami can be configured only after the site owner approves the public URL, provider, and privacy language; GA4 remains blocked by default.
• Per-guide research brief archive generated at /research/, with one local HTML brief per researched article so application reviewers can trace rendered claims back to demand/source notes.
• Affiliate placement policy page generated at /affiliate-placement-policy.html, documenting utility-first CTA rules, copy guardrails, partner-fit matrix, and subID naming convention for after approval.
• Partner link map generated at /partner-link-map.html, mapping every placeholder CTA to a future approved partner class, placement count, and example subIDs without adding live links.
• Affiliate program fit matrix generated at /affiliate-program-fit.html, mapping current guide clusters to broad travel, activity/tour, lodging, car-rental, and later gear-program classes with explicit claims-to-avoid language.
• Affiliate application inventory generated at /affiliate-application-inventory.html, listing every article's cluster, affiliate intents, research status, demand/source-note counts, research brief link, and whether it is blocked or eligible for application use.
• Affiliate signup field notes generated at /affiliate-signup-fields.html, giving the site owner safe draft answers, program-specific positioning, representative-page candidates, and application claims to avoid.
• Affiliate signup go/no-go checklist generated at /affiliate-go-no-go.html, separating content-base readiness from public URL, trust-page, source-health, and representative-page verification gates.
• Affiliate signup readiness scorecard generated at /affiliate-readiness-scorecard.html, giving the site owner a yes/no readiness table, current blockers, and the minimum action list before applications.
• Affiliate safety audit generated at /affiliate-safety-audit.html, confirming the local build has 0 live/non-placeholder affiliate CTA hrefs, 0 analytics/tracking markers, expected trust/readiness files present, and all article research briefs present as of the latest local scan.
• Trust page finalization checklist generated at /trust-page-finalization.html, separating the locally present trust-page structure from the the site owner decisions still needed for contact method, privacy language, disclosure wording, analytics posture, and editorial accountability.
• Public preview approval packet generated at /public-preview-approval.html, separating the site owner's public-URL/contact/privacy/disclosure decisions from the still-blocked affiliate signup and representative-page verification work.
• Representative page shortlist generated at /representative-page-shortlist.html, ranking the best researched local guides to manually verify before using them as affiliate-application examples.
• Representative page evidence packet generated at /representative-page-evidence-packet.html, summarizing the first 5 application example pages, their existing demand/source support, and the final exact-page proof items required before external use.
• Representative page verification template generated at /representative-page-verification.html, giving the site owner/agent a copyable checklist for the final proof pass before using a guide URL in an affiliate application.
• Representative page final-check queue generated at /representative-page-final-check-queue.html, prioritizing the exact application-example pages to manually re-open against official/current sources before external use.
• Representative page verification ledger generated at /representative-page-ledger.html, showing that shortlisted pages are not yet cleared for affiliate-application use and listing exact source checks required for each.
• Affiliate signup readiness page generated at /readiness.html, summarizing content counts, intent coverage, example URLs, and blockers.
• Placeholder affiliate buttons are present, but there are no live partner links or tracking IDs in the static build.
• Research notes exist under /research/ for researched and demand-checked articles; affiliate applications should still wait for the site owner-approved public URL/contact/privacy details and final manual checks on any representative URLs submitted.

URLs/content examples to submit after deployment

Use the homepage plus several representative guides:

• / — Getaway Brief homepage.
• /articles/weekend-trips-from-nyc-without-a-car.html — no-car city/weekend intent.
• /articles/where-to-stay-near-zion-without-a-car.html — lodging + tour intent.
• /articles/things-to-do-in-gatlinburg-when-it-rains.html — activity-ticket intent.
• /articles/dog-friendly-weekend-trips-from-atlanta.html — pet-friendly lodging intent.
• /articles/warm-weekend-trips-from-chicago-in-march.html — flight/hotel package intent.
• /articles/where-to-stay-in-savannah-without-a-car.html — walkable hotel/tour intent.
• /articles/dog-friendly-weekend-trips-from-dallas.html — pet-friendly hotel/vacation-rental intent.
• /articles/where-to-stay-in-charleston-without-a-car.html — downtown walkable hotel/tour intent.

Representative-page verification checklist

Before using any guide URL in an affiliate application, the site owner or the agent should complete and date these checks for the exact deployed page. Use /representative-page-evidence-packet.html to select and frame the first proof pages, then use /representative-page-verification.html as the copyable checklist and archive the completed result in the matching research/{slug}.md file or a dated verification note.

None of these pages should be called publish_candidate until the final check is complete and recorded in research/ or article source_notes.

Before the site owner submits applications

Required approvals/actions:

• Choose/register a domain or approve a deploy-preview URL for applications.
• Approve public publishing of the static site.
• Replace placeholder contact copy with the site owner-approved contact method.
• Confirm privacy policy language for analytics/cookies/affiliate tracking.
• Confirm affiliate disclosure wording.
• Confirm editorial-policy wording and whether the fact-check queue is acceptable for the first public preview.
• Confirm no private credentials will be stored in the repo.
• Do final copy edits and manual verification before marking any page publish_candidate; researched local drafts are not automatically publish-ready.
• Recheck any source note or research brief caveat about prior retrieval issues, volatile schedules, official transit pages, park rules, venue hours, or pet policies before marking those pages publish_candidate, even where current source-note URLs now have clean local URL health.
• Use /publish-candidate-gate.html as the final gate before changing any article status from researched to publish_candidate.
• Use /affiliate-go-no-go.html as the final pre-application decision checklist after source health, representative-page verification, and the site owner public-URL/trust-page approvals are complete.
• Use /affiliate-application-inventory.html to select representative URLs by intent/status only after the exact-page checks are complete; current researched pages are still blocked for external application examples.
• Use /source-recheck-queue.html alongside /final-verification-plan.html to reopen every source note before representative-page verification; these pages are QA aids only, not approval to publish or apply.
• Re-run python3 scripts/audit_source_health.py before submitting applications so the source-health page reflects current official-source reachability.

After approval

Implementation steps for the agent once the site owner provides partner IDs/links:

1. Add partner-link config outside article editorial data.
2. Replace #affiliate-placeholder with intent-matched partner links.
3. Add subID naming convention by article slug and CTA type.
4. Rebuild site and verify links/disclosures.
5. Do not deploy publicly unless the site owner separately approves deployment.