Developer finds 32 competitor brand mentions hidden in affiliate site's raw HTML

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A developer auditing a top-ranking crypto trading comparison site discovered it contained 32 hidden references to a competitor brand buried in the raw HTML markup. The site, which ranked first for its target keyword, showed no structured data and had a sitemap copied from a different domain. Inspecting downloaded HTML files revealed the competitor's name appeared across eight pages, including in a fees section, indicating the template had been repurposed from another product's affiliate site. The findings highlight how affiliate templates are frequently resold and reused without thorough content audits, leaving outdated or incorrect brand references intact. The developer concluded that rendered page views can mask such errors and that raw HTML inspection is essential when auditing comparison or affiliate sites.

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