tl;dr where is the ref link again? Moderators probably edited the post.
I'm guessing that
https://1broker.com/m/r.php had some sort of ID on the end which made it a referral link. As you said, Mods likely edited the post.
Yes, i was wondering the same when i looked at the thread. Since normally reflinks have a ?=243 at the end. I'm relatively sure these were real reflinks. In fact it probably wouldn't make sense either to post a link that goes to the 1broker page that works up reflinks. So the links really have to be edited i guess. Maybe a mod thought that the tutorial can stay when the reflinks go away.