Blogger Beware: 3 Ways You Could Be Breaking Amazon’s Affiliate Program Rules

Blogger Beware- 3 Ways You Could be Breaking Amazon's Affiliate Program Rules

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to give a word of warning to all bloggers. Unless you are a blogger, feel free to simply disregard this post. :)

If you are a blogger, you are most likely part of the Amazon Affiliate program. It is so easy to implement and can be a great source of income. It also makes blogging increasingly user-friendly!

Although Amazon is super easy to use, this can sometimes mean that it is also easy to (unknowingly) abuse. I wanted to share with you three things you could currently be doing that violates the Amazon Affiliates Program Participation Requirements. I have either done (or come close to doing) each of these things, not realizing they were violating the terms of use, and just want to get the word out to other bloggers!

Here are three ways you could be breaking Amazon’s Affiliate Program Rules (without even knowing it):

 

1. Shortening Your Affiliate URL:

With the recent Facebook changes, more people see your posts if you only include the link (and not the preview). The problem is that Amazon Affiliate links are loooong and it just makes sense to shorten them using the Tiny URL or Bitly generator, right? Wrong. This is a violation of Amazon’s Terms of Use:

“You will not cloak, hide, spoof, or otherwise obscure the URL of your site containing Special Links (including by use of a redirecting page) such that we cannot reasonably determine the site from which a customer clicks through such Special Link to the Amazon Site.” –Amazon Affiliates Program Participation Requirements, #30

And

“In addition, you must not use a link shortening service in a manner that makes it unclear that you are linking to an Amazon Site.”  –Amazon Associates Program Linking Requirements (middle of 2nd paragraph)

I have been (unknowingly) guilty of doing this in the past. It wasn’t until I recently reviewed Amazon’s Participation Requirements that I realized I was violating it! Either use the full (ugly) URL or use the “Share on Facebook” or “Share on Twitter” options within the Affiliate Site Stripe.

*Update:  If you use the link shortener through Amazon itself (available by searching for individual products on Amazon’s affiliate homepage), these shortened links are permitted.

 

2. Including links in eBooks, e-mails or PDF documents:

I nearly violated the Terms of Use for the Amazon Affiliate Program when I wrote my new eBook. Within the book, I gave several recommendations for books and other products. As always, I only included books/products I currently use and can personally endorse. However,  three days before its launch I was reading the comments in Blogging with Amy’s post and someone had commented that you could not use affiliate links within an eBook. I was stunned and I immediately panicked. I had never come across this information before, so I began to dig…and dig…and dig to find out some answers. The problem is that the wording on the Participation Requirements is a bit ambiguous (especially in reference to eBooks):

“You will not engage in any promotional, marketing, or other advertising activities on behalf of us or our affiliates, or in connection with the Amazon Site or the Program, that are not expressly permitted under the Operating Agreement. For example, you will not engage in any promotional, marketing, or other advertising activities in any offline manner, including by using any of our or our affiliates’ trademarks or logos (including any Amazon Mark), any Content, or any Special Link in connection with an offline promotion or in any other offline manner (e.g., in any printed material, mailing, email or attachment to email, or other document, or any oral solicitation).” –Amazon Affiliates Program Participation Requirements, #6

See what I mean? It doesn’t say you can and it doesn’t say you can’t. In my near panic, I abruptly e-mailed Amazon to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth and this was their response:

“You should not place an Amazon Affiliate link within your book. However, you may add the link to your website within the content of your book.”
There you have it:  You cannot use your Amazon Affiliate Links in an eBook, whether it is a Kindle version or PDF. You can use Amazon links, they just can’t be your affiliate links. And just so you know, all of the links in my eBook have been changed to remove my affiliate info.
3. Using your affiliate link for items you purchase:
As much as it stinks, you cannot use your own affiliate link to purchase items (even if you use a different Amazon account to do so). And you can’t ask friends or relatives to either (similar to Google Adsense’s policy on soliciting clicks on ads).
“You will not purchase any Product(s) through Special Links for use by you or for resale or commercial use of any kind. Similarly, you will not request or encourage any of your friends, relatives, or associates to purchase any Product(s) through Special Links for use by you or them or for resale or commercial use of any kind. Further, you will not offer any Products on your site for resale or commercial use of any kind.” –Amazon Associates Program Participation Requirements, #29
UPDATE:  Amazon just changed their operating agreement again. This change greatly affects those bloggers who promote free eBooks on their blogs/websites:
“YOU WILL NOT BE ELIGIBLE TO EARN ANY ADVERTISING FEES DURING ANY MONTH IN WHICH YOU MEET THE FOLLOWING CONDITIONS:
(a) 20,000 or more free Kindle eBooks are ordered and downloaded during Sessions attributed to your Special Links;
and
(b) At least 80% of all Kindle eBooks ordered and downloaded during Sessions attributed to your Special Links are free
Kindle eBooks.”
Like I said, I would have never known any of this unless I went through the Program Requirements and the Operating Agreement with a fine-toothed comb in my quest for some answers to my eBook dilemma. Even then, a few things were still a bit ambiguous. I share this information with you to spare you from ever being reprimanded by Amazon for unknowingly breaking their rules.

150 Comments

  1. Eek! Thank you for posting this! I was looking to purchase a domain name and set up hosting for the sole purpose of being able to include affiliate links – something you’re not allowed to do with the free WordPress sites. However, I think that the only people who read my blog are friends…so, it wouldn’t be worth it. /sigh

    Thanks, again, for the heads up!

    1. You could still do that…friends can purchase through your Amazon affiliate links. You just can’t say, “Hey, will you buy such and such through my link on Amazon?” When you write a post, just include the link and leave it at that. Just make sure you have a privacy policy on your new site.

      1. Thanks Janea – This was exactly my question. I just started my site two weeks ago while off on sick leave. I go back on Monday and won’t be able to post as often. I wanted to put a comment on my latest post to remind everyone to buy through my Amazon link but thought I better find out if it is allowed. I had a feeling that it was not. Thanks for the information.

        1. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I’m afraid this isn’t true. I was told by Amazon to specifically tell my family/friends NOT to use the links. Hopefully they’d be understanding if one did without your knowledge, but they actually do want you to be proactive in stopping them. The exact phrasing of the terms is, “[Y]ou will not PERMIT [emphasis added], request or encourage any of your friends, relatives,… to directly or indirectly purchase any Product(s) through Special Links[.]”

  2. The good thing about #1 is that Amazon will shorten your link to am.zn link. But I had NO IDEA about #2. What in the world can be done about books already sold? I mean, nothing, obviously. But wow. I’ll have to change that, too! And #3, I don’t buy via my own link (I guess I assumed it just wouldn’t work.) so I usually click thru my fave bloggers’ links! ;)

    Thanks for the info!
    a

  3. I have two questions:

    1. Can we used amazon affiliate links on content websites such as squidoo, hubpages etc. I know many people are already doing this, but I am not very sure if this is allowed.

    2. Can we use affiliate links on social medial websites such as facebook, twitter etc. Here, I am not talking about sharing posts with links but direct links. There is a lot of confusion online as far as this issue is concerned.

    Thank you

    Raunek k

    1. Not sure about #1.

      #2 is just fine, as long as you don’t shorten the URL OR You use one of the “Share” buttons from the affiliate stripe at the top of your Amazon account (the bar at the top of the page that allows you to easily link directly from a product page).

    2. Also, you’ll want to make sure you’ve added any social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, etc) to your Amazon Affiliate account under websites.

  4. I had heard rumblings recently about not being able to use Amazon links in eBooks (thankfully, I didn’t use any in mine – I had considered it but worried about the rules changing). I had no idea about the other rules you mentioned. Thank you for this information. Pinned so I can pass it along and remind myself!

  5. Awesome Article!
    Thanks for the info!!!
    I just started using Amazon Assosiates after playing around with Google Adsense for a bit (don’t worry, I’m keeping that too… whew) on my blog (fashioninfull on Blogger)
    And I am really hoping to see some results from both,
    Thanks for the heads up!!

  6. Is there any way to track how many free books have been downloaded from your links or what percentage of books being downloaded are free?

  7. what about sites with huge traffic but mainly file sharing. the visitors are there waiting for their download and might as well be looking at products to buy possibly.

  8. There is an Amazon link shortener in your affiliate central. Using that short link is ok.

    Amazon affiliate links that do not come from a webpage will simply not generate any commission. I have a few old ones out there still, and I get “products ordered” listed, but they never move to the “earned” category. Amazon will only credit affiliate referrals from websites. So, it’s not that if you include affiliate links in your ebook you’re earning credit against the rules; it’s just a waste of your time. Same with clicks through emails.

    So I make a blog post about a book I want to link to in my eBook, then link to that post which has the affiliate link.

  9. One of the very best reasons for having Amazon Affiliates is there’s a choice of products to select from, therefore ostensibly no matter what you’re interested in there is a entire type of products that you can market.

  10. I was wondering if you have an opinion on the wording of of #29 with regards to bloggers. I see lots of bloggers asking their readers to please click through their links to help support their blog – in fact I used to do the same thing myself, until I read #29. It seems like a grey area and to be honest I think Amazon’s wording of their TOS is not completely clear. However, I got the impression that Amazon doesn’t want us asking *anyone* to click through our links, even blog readers. I love Amazon and would be sad if I was banned for violating one of their rules. I don’t know for sure, but I worry if I got busted for doing something wrong and they banned my associates account, they may ban my personal account, too. I would rather follow the rules. But I did wonder if maybe I’m reading between the lines and interpreting wrong – or are the bloggers asking for clicks in danger of violating the TOS? Thanks for your thoughts.

  11. I have a new ebook just published for Kindle. I am also an Amazon Associate. Can I post a link on Facebook with my Associate link in it? I understand from an earlier answer this would be OK, if I add my Facebook page to my sites on Amazon. But how does it work if another Facebook friend decided to share my post? I wouldn’t be able to know about that and be able to let Amazon know about their page.
    any thoughts on this?

  12. Thank you so much for this. I was not aware of Rule #2. I was actually, like you, going to create an eBook and at the end I was going to recommend some good financial books that people can purchase (it was partly how I was going to fund this little project of mine!). Unfortunately I guess I’ll have to find some other ways to make this eBook worthwhile. Perhaps I’ll just create an article on my recommended product and THEN put the amazon link on there? We’ll see, haha!

  13. Thanks for the useful information. I am thinking of starting to promote amazon products and was about to do those things you mentioned.

    Are we supposed to use amazon links ONLY on our website that we registered while signing up, or can we put the links on our other websites too ? Are we allowed to share amazon links directly on facebook and twitter ? Twitter will automatically cloak to t.co so that will violate the rules I guess.

  14. What’s interesting with the ebook rule is if you put out a holiday catalogue which is posted on your site with those affiliate links, the rule states that it’s okay to have them like that.

    But if someone downloads the catalog and clicks on the link, that’s considered wrong.

    I’ve never understood the shortening thing since their links were so dang long and ugly. I always thought that as long as you disclosed affiliates on your site that was the most important thing. With them dropping various states around the country and throwing in these double edged sword rules, it’s getting a little tougher with them.

    Thanks so much for those updates since I think probably over half of Amazon affiliates are breaking at least one of them unknowingly!

  15. Hi Jenae.

    I just came across your blog randomly and saw you referenced my comment on Blogging with Amy.
    As I mentioned in her comments section you can’t use your Amazon associate links in offline manner such as in your eBooks though you can use a non-affiliate link.

    Your information on URL shorteners is not quite correct. You can use link shorteners however, if you do you must clarify that the link goes to Amazon. See #5 here: https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/help/t50

    To be safe it is a good idea to use the tools Amazon provides. Many affiliates do not realize that Amazon has a link shortener in their Associates Central. To find this go to the Associates Central home page > Search for a product > Type in the name of the product > On the far right click on the down arrow next to Get Link > The long link will pop up with an option to Shorten URL with Amazon.to

    Hope this helps,
    Lee

    1. Good to know about Amazon’s own link shortener. Like Adsense, Amazon has some very specific rules, although I find them to be a lot more straightforward than those at Adsense, which can be a little obtuse to say the least ;

    2. What if I am shortening the link to a blog post in which I have liste favorite accessories, which are all linked within the blog using links provided by Amazon? (I use amazons link shortener for these links in my blog post – however, I don’t paste the link in the blog, rather in link text). Am I breaking any rules here?

    3. Hi Lee,

      Thanks for the info. I just discovered I got terminated. They state it’s violation of #24 of the agreement. I cannot find that number in the agreement (I guess they might have changed it). I’ve been going back and forth with them, they said I’ve included the “Special Links”in feedback and emails.

      I found that in a few of the feedbacks I’ve talked about how another product was better and gave my associates link. I edited and removed those, however they are just not flexible out forgiving. They just write back, “…your account has been terminated because of associates requirement #24…”

      Is there a way to get my account reinstated? If not, would I be able to create a new one? Also, is this going to effect my prospects of selling my own products on Amazon? Can anyone help?

      Thanks,
      Dan

  16. Its like you read my mind! You seem to know a lot about this, like you wrote the
    book in it or something. I think that you could do with a few
    pics to drive the message home a bit, but instead of that, this is magnificent blog.
    An excellent read. I will certainly be back.

  17. What’s Taking place i am new to this, I stumbled upon this I
    have discovered It absolutely helpful and it has helped me out loads.
    I hope to give a contribution & assist other customers like
    its helped me. Great job.

  18. I’ve been guilty of violating number 1 above ( Shortening Your Affiliate URL) for over a year now. Guess I’m lucky it hasn’t caught up to me yet. Thanks for the share. I will make the necessary correction right away.

  19. Greetings.

    I suppose the term link shortener in this context really means link cloaker which main purpose is to cloak rather than shorten the affiliate link.

    Thank you for all this useful information and discussion.

    Good luck.

    1. The Amazon link shortener dramatically reduces the length of the URL. One I used just today was 22 characters, including the slashes, colons and dots. You can actually tweet one of their shortened links – no chance with an original affiliate link.

  20. Thank you for the information but I have confuse about using Amazon material such as product images and consumer review. Can we use the product images and consumer review from Amazon to our website (copy paste) to add the information to our review?

    Thank you for the answer.

  21. I have always used Reviewazon as well as Amazon widgets and I sell quite a bit on Amazon. I decided to give Amazon Publisher Studio a try before Christmas because I like what it does. My visitors can mouse over an image and see the Amazon price and rating. If it’s not working, I still have my images linked to where I want the user to go, so I’m not worried about their server going down.

    HOWEVER, my traffic has really started to drop and I’m wondering if something in the Google algorithm has noticed this addition to my site. It could be something else, but I’m about ready to remove the links and see if traffic comes back.

    1. I have also seen big drops in traffic from Google since adding these links to my site. I will be removing them even though I really like the way the work too.

  22. I found this article to be very informative. Big Thanks! It make me realize how effective Pinterest was as I found it on Pinterest after receiving a recommended Pins in an email. Thank you once again!

  23. Thanks for the tips! Just subscribed to an auto-posting service for Facebook where they offer an option to shorten Amazon affiliate links. Good to know that the shortening needs to be through Amazon’s feature.

  24. Another way is by linking to your Amazon wish list. We had a link that said “Support our site and buy us some gifts from our wish list!”

    Amazon shut down our affiliate program without any warning and said that we violated their rules. They said that people might think that affiliate links on our site should be vlivkrf to support us, even though we only had the text on the bookmark button.

    To be clear, the bookmark button just went to the Amazon wishlist hosted at Amazon, not a page with affiliate links.

    Anyhow, Amazon said that once they delete an affiliate they can’t undelete it, so we would need to reapply and start over. It didn’t seem worth the risk if they could pull the plug at any time without warning, so we declined and moved all of our Amazon-hosted servers/data elsewhere.

  25. so i created a website for book reviews and i used each title as a link back to the amazon website using the affiliate link. are you saying that this is not allowed?

  26. Awesome article! I have one question though, If I have a physical product that I’ve had manufactured and and am selling on amazon (and having them fulfill the order), Would I be able to sell this on a site I own, and collect a commission through an affiliate link as well?

    I don’t see how it would be any different as anyone else promoting my product on their site, but want to be extra cautious.

  27. I know this is an old post and you may have already answered, and I’ll def be reading the amazon materials but in regards to number 2…I signed up as an affiliate recently and in my email newsletter I have a monthly link up feature of stuff I want to share. Does this mean I’m not allowed to use my affiliate link?

    1. Yes, you are correct. That would be a violation of their terms of use. Even affiliate links in blog posts that are in an RSS feed (ultimately going out to e-mail subscribers) are considered a violation. If you have a WordPress blog, I believe there is a plug-in that removes amazon affiliate links from your RSS feed.

  28. Thanks Jenae,

    I didn’t realize we can not encourage family and friends to buy from our links. I almost feel that what is the point?

    I will keep my affiliate links going for a while, but it is a little frustrating. BTW, do you know what rules they use to remove commissions? Is it based on mailing address? Before I found your page, I had given my wife a link to buy some school supplies. When I noticed the sell without commission, that is when I went looking and found your page.

    Thanks again,

    – Doug

  29. Hi,
    Google delete my 5 nos. Amazon affiliate blogs. According to my knowledge i did not violate rules.They said I have violated rules. Any body have idea how to handle blogs with amazon affiliate without violating Google rules. Pls advice me.Thanks

  30. Thanks for the heads up on this. I use a private shortener so this is a good time to fix that. I don’t mind using Amazon’s own shortener, but then it sucks because you don’t get your own stats to compare.

    Oh well. Thanks anyway! Great blog.

  31. Bit.ly now creates Amazon links and you can track clicks using them. Jason with Pro Blog School verified with Amazon that this service is within terms. Now to find or develop a Bit.ly plugin that shortens internal post/page Amazon links and not just the whole post/page URL.

  32. Hi Jenae,
    Well, many people are still breaking these 3 rules and Amazon have not done anything about it.
    Have you seen anyone getting banned because of these? Because I have read many ebooks with affiliate links, got redirected to amazon and seen many doing the third one too.
    Thanks for the post! Will try not to do this when I will start promoting Amazon so far I promote Indian estore.

    1. No, I haven’t seen or heard of anyone being banned. But technically they could at any time. I don’t want to take that risk. AND I want to be ethical in the way that I conduct myself…whether Amazon does anything about it or not. :)

  33. Hi Jenae,
    I recently started a free wordpress blog. Am I not allowed to affiliate with amazon?? I understand that I cannot install any plugins with the free blog, nor can I join Wordads, but referring amazon product links and earning from that is also not allowed??

  34. I just got banned from amazon. Don’t know what the reasons are. I didn’t shorten the url, or I put it on my facebook. I just leave the link as it as. So desperate of being Amazon affiliate. They don’t pay my last commissions :(
    Btw, thank you for your post. What a great blog :)

  35. the other thing that stinks a bit is the exclusions list. It comes and goes with different items that AMZ wont payout on and therefore, i have seen people build complete product sites only to find nearly everything on the items they placed is not entitled to receive a commission.
    At the time of writing 27 AUG 14 there wasnt anything listed at https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/help/operating/exclusions but i have seen it stacked on occassions in the past excluding mainly electronic items like brand name GPS devices, TVs etc

  36. I set up my Amazon affiliate website, then I set up a twitter, Facebook, and Google +, for my website. When I post, I link directly to my Amazon affiliate site and use an image of the product in the posts. Is that allowed? Do I have to put the affiliate disclaimer on the social media sites?

  37. I’m so glad I found this post! I’m a newbie blogger and am an Amazon affiliate. I didn’t know about these things. I just wanted to thank you for bringing these things to our attention! I never would have wanted to get into trouble with them :)

  38. Great article. But when it comes to the first part I recently had a support person tell me the following “Associates Operating Agreement doesn’t prohibit the use of link cloaking or shortening services provided that the service doesn’t use methods which violate the Associates Program Operating Agreement, such as framing the Amazon site or automatically tagging sessions with your Associates ID”. I would love to know if anyone has gotten the same info regarding this when contacting support?

  39. Jenae,

    I am so interested to be an affiliate, but some of ToS confuse me, I guess we shouldn’t post link in product review? but I saw some of them have affiliate link, here is one example: amazon dot com/review/R8X9S7O5Z8GDD/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

    Please advice,

    Matty

    1. People do that and lots of other violations as well, but it’s not permitted, and if they ever get caught they can be terminated from the program.

  40. So what if you have a plugin that redirects links based on country, this is actually illegal. Bad, I have a lot of split redirects on my blog.

    This is needed to send visitors to Amazon UK or US or DE. Often products can’t be shipped to another zone.

  41. Many thanks for this entry. Just what I needed to know, and I guess as many people, do not go through all the fine print each time there is a change, and the first time is a real long time ago.

    the product review link is also an interesting one. The review has to be such, that it refers to your page, where then there can be an affiliate code…

    Many thanks again.

    Richard de Laat

  42. Geez do I understand the following statement below correctly as if there are more then 20,000 kindles ordered I would not be entitled to affiliate commissions and if so if Amazon does not want us to sell their merchandise then might just as well shut the darn thing down.

    (a) 20,000 or more free Kindle eBooks are ordered and downloaded during Sessions attributed to your Special Links

    Kenneth C Young

    1. Hi my understanding is if those 20000 ebooks were free you lose your months commissions so if you review lots of books for a book club and people download from old reviews where the author is using their free days, you get screwed. Not sure if that is fact just my interpretation.

      It sucks.

  43. I don’t think all shortening links are banned out right. There are certain caveats that should be taken into account. The first one:

    “…such that we cannot reasonably determine the site from which a customer clicks through such Special Link to the Amazon Site.”

    If you use a link shortener such as pretty links that shortens links using your websites own domain that is registered in your associates account, then they will be able to reasonably determine that is your domain from which a customer clicked. If you were using a link shorterner such as bit.ly that would be a different story.

    The second issue:

    “In addition, you must not use a link shortening service in a manner that makes it unclear that you are linking to an Amazon Site.”

    This is simply solved by appropriately naming your shortened link such as:

    example.com/shop-amazon-super-cool-product

    Amazon is clearly stated n the link, so that is making it clear that you are linking to amazon.

  44. Thank you so much , but I am not sure about “Shortening Your Affiliate URL” because if you are logged into your account and open the product page you will see “Short Link To This Page” and we can make a short link of the product from there

  45. Thanks for the Amazon Affiliate tips. It seems like you care about the rules and want to follow them so I thought I’d mention that the Amazon rules you accidentally violated are minuscule compared to the FTC rules you are violating by not clearly marking your affiliate ads. I’ve heard of fines above $250,000.00 dollars handed down to sites not clearly informing people that their ads are affiliate ads. You might want to check into it. I like your site and would hate to see you have any legal troubles.

    1. Thanks for your concern, Ben. I actually have a disclosure on every single post right underneath the post title (next to the date and author name). I don’t have affiliate links on *every* post, but I do have them on most, so I just decided to add it to all my posts. Based on my understanding, this meets the FTC regulations…but if I am mistaken, please let me know.

      Again, thanks for your concern.

  46. For #2, does that mean you CAN put affiliate links from other websites (that are not amazon affiliates) in your Amazon kindle ebook?

  47. Some of their rules are utterly ridiculous. I would never promote Amazon products as an affiliate anyway. You couldn’t even get me out of bed for 3% -6% commissions.

    I promote digital products that pay as much as 50% – 100% commissions per sale. That’s where the real money is at, bot the piddle single digit commissions Amazon offers.

    I love the one where they try and tell you that you can’t have a friend order a product for you through your affiliate link so you could save a little money. How would they ever know if this person is a friend of yours? Especially if that person didn’t even live in the same state. It would be impossible for them to know unless you were dumb enough to have the product shipped to your address or if you used a relative with the same last name as yours.

    Amazon is a joke. I have an affiliate account but hardly ever use it. If they banned me today, I wouldn’t even take the 30 seconds it would take to open their email. Great post, though. Very informatiove for those who want to work their ass off for 4%.

    1. I agree that their commission rates are very small…however nearly EVERYONE buys something from Amazon. I make quite a bit of money from them every month as all those little transactions add up- normally it isn’t the product I am promoting that the readers buy, but something else that is already in their cart or something that catches their eye while looking at the original product. It works for my niche and for my readership, but other affiliate opportunities work much better for other niches.

  48. My website has affiliate links attached in posts such as when I do a top 5 list etc. My site has been with Amazon for a while now and I haven’t heard anything from them! I think what Amazon wants is for affiliates not to shove promotion down everyone’s throats but for its affiliates to have a more honest approach to what their markets are. My advice is to complete a blog about what interests you.

  49. Amazon closed my affiliates account without warning… I don’t think it’s a particularly worthy program to use if it’s going to do stuff like that on a whim. I hadn’t added or changed anything in a long time. Well… Amazon was worth the time for a while, I guess!

  50. Dear Jenae,

    I joined amazon affiliate recently and just read about this thing (amazon associate account can be closed due to cloacking of amazon affiliate link). I found a wp plugin (prettylink) to do the cloacking. Do you have any information regarding this wp plugin ? Is it permitted or should I avoid using it ?

  51. If you’re an Amazon affiliate, there is an option to shorten the affiliate URL within your admin dashboard. Instead of clicking the “Get link” button, click the down arrow and you’ll see an option to get a short URL.

  52. “such that we cannot reasonably determine the site from which a customer clicks through”

    I use a cloaker that uses my site url so I believe that you can cloak safely as long as Amazon can tell what website the link is coming from. This is probably more to prevent Craigslist spamming.

  53. How about just redirecting the amazon url?

    for example:

    mydomain.com/my-amazon-product.htm

    the end result is the url going to amazon
    showing the entire amazon url…no tricks,
    nothing hidden, etc…

    Is this allowed?

  54. Fantastic article! Easy to read and understand. I really appreciate the work you put into this. I recently launched my blog The Glass Mom and also have been a bit confused about affiliate marketing. I’m still writing my “policies.” So much work but worth it and fun. Again, a fantastic read! Sharing it.
    Peace & Grace,
    Maria Gagnon – The Glass Mom
    http://www.theglassmom.com

  55. I just got my affiliate programme shut down (without email notice). I only realised because I logged in for the first time in a year to see if anything had moved. My blog is really only for friends and family and my 14-year-old daughter had bought 7 ebooks in the last 4 months through an affiliate link. Great. There is really no point taking part in a programme that doesn’t give warning if rules are broken and shuts down accounts immediately.

  56. I’ve known about #1, had no idea about the ebooks thing though.

    Also, how exactly does Amazon know that it’s one of your friends buying the products through your link? For instance.. if my sister who lives across the country and has a different last name buys something through my link, can they really tell she’s part of my family?

  57. I have to say it. it’s hard to imagine making enough money from Amazon affiliate to warrant worrying about their ebook policy. I would just do what you want. If your ebook gets huge distribution and lots of Amazon revenue, then cloak the links. Just sayin,

    1. There are many many people who make a ton of money as an Amazon affiliate. It’s always better to follow the rules, in my opinion.

  58. You could still do that…friends should purchase through your Amazon affiliate links. You just can’t say, “Hey, will you purchase such and such through my link on Amazon?” after you write a post, just embrace the link and leave it at that. Just create certain you have got a privacy policy on your new website.

  59. Thanku for this article. I have joined amazon affiliate programme just 2 days before and want to learn about their rules. My doubt was can I purchase from my own affiliate link. I googled and landed in your page. I got the answer and your article helped me a lot. Thanku vwry much.

    If you have sometime feel free to visit my blog.

  60. I was just about to buy a couple items off amazon today… I was thinking I might as well go through my affiliate link on my site. Thankfully I got to your website first!

  61. Today I noticed something I purchased for myself showed up under my amazon affiliate earnings. I don’t even have a link to this product on my blog so I am confused as to how this even happened. I don’t want to be breaking the rules, especially because I am just starting my blog. Has this happened to anyone? Anyone have advice as to what I should do?

  62. You know, it’s an interesting article, but I suggest you take a look at thewirecutter.com, one of the largest affiliate sites. They use a completely scrambled link. My reading of all of the relevant information indicates that the primary thing you cannot do is to spoof or frame the Amazon site so that the customer might not be able to see that they are on the Amazon site. But as long as Amazon can tell where the link came from and you don’t do the above, you are ok. So using a link on your own site, or Amazon’s shortener, you are ok. The Amazon rules in some sections are, I think, outmoded.

  63. Thank you for helping clarify some of these issues. I was just reading through the rules and needed some minor examples to assure I fully understood what I was agreeing to. This was helpful thank you.

  64. Hi Sir,
    As for the no 2 rule. You could link to a blog post with more info and include the link there. There are always a way around. For part one use a crisp landing page.

  65. Thanks for the headsup! Seriously
    I found this post looking for Amazon Affiliate Program feedback, blogs, how-to’s, etc before jumping on board with my web site.

    Thanks again

  66. The thing I still see an insane amount of people doing is leaving out the affiliate disclaimer notice on their website. I don’t think Amazon do a very good job of telling people that they need to include the notice in their terms (or at worst, privacy policy).

    Checking the Amazon Associates forum shows a lot of people get their accounts banned simply because they haven’t included the notice anywhere.

    Quite sad really. Amazon’s rules are fairly strict, but it’s amazing how few people people know, due to never reading the actual terms of the account.

  67. Have some quick questions. I’m thinking of creating a full fledged website or blog that is adult-oriented in nature. I’m also planning on creating an online amzon affiliate store and have a link from that adult website to the amazon affiliate store. I also have social medias like twitter that is adult-oriented in nature. Wondering if that’s ok in amazon’s TOS as an associate? Will I be relegated to selling adult oriented items in my amazon affiliate store? Or are all these out of the question?

  68. I am running a fashion niche content website. Suppose I am promoting product A (listed in Amazon) with an affiliate link but the user clicks on that link and buys a different product, say product B. Am I eligible for a commission here?

    I would also like to know if I can just make the user land on amazon homepage, so if he/she buys anything from Amazon by clicking on that link I get a commission. Is it possible?

  69. Can I ask friend to open my website in his/her browser and then ask to click amazon affiliate ad and then buy the product? Will this violate the policy?

  70. Awesome Article!
    Thanks for the info!!!
    I just started using Amazon Assosiates after playing around with Google Adsense for a bit (don’t worry, I’m keeping that too.
    And I am really hoping to see some results from both,
    Thanks for the heads up!!

  71. It’s seem Amazon also not accept for paid traffic. I’m confused. If you can’t use affiliate links in your emails to your subscribers or in your e-books, when can you actually use them?

  72. Hey, some paragraphs of Amazon policies have a resemblance to several Biblical Commandments:

    “You will not purchase any Product(s)…”

    Thou shalt not… etcetera.

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