Blogger Beware: 3 Ways You Could Be Breaking Amazon's Affiliate Program Rules
Nosotros interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to give a word of alert to all bloggers. Unless you are a blogger, feel free to but disregard this post. :)
If you are a blogger, yous are most likely part of the Amazon Affiliate program. It is and so like shooting fish in a barrel to implement and can be a great source of income. Information technology also makes blogging increasingly user-friendly!
Although Amazon is super easy to use, this tin 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 take either done (or come close to doing) each of these things, not realizing they were violating the terms of use, and merely want to get the word out to other bloggers!
Here are 3 ways y'all could exist breaking Amazon's Chapter Program Rules (without even knowing it):
1. Shortening Your Affiliate URL:
With the recent Facebook changes, more than people run into your posts if yous only include the link (and not the preview). The problem is that Amazon Chapter links are loooong and it merely makes sense to shorten them using the Tiny URL or Bitly generator, right? Wrong. This is a violation of Amazon'due south Terms of Employ:
"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 decide the site from which a customer clicks through such Special Link to the Amazon Site." –Amazon Affiliates Plan Participation Requirements, #xxx
And
"In addition, you must not use a link shortening service in a manner that makes it unclear that you lot are linking to an Amazon Site." –Amazon Associates Program Linking Requirements (middle of 2nd paragraph)
I accept been (unknowingly) guilty of doing this in the by. Information technology wasn't until I recently reviewed Amazon'southward Participation Requirements that I realized I was violating it! Either utilize the full (ugly) URL or utilize the "Share on Facebook" or "Share on Twitter" options inside the Chapter Site Stripe.
*Update: If you use the link shortener through Amazon itself (available by searching for private products on Amazon'south affiliate homepage), these shortened links are permitted.
ii. Including links in eBooks, e-mails or PDF documents:
I about violated the Terms of Use for the Amazon Affiliate Programme when I wrote my new eBook. Inside the book, I gave several recommendations for books and other products. As e'er, I only included books/products I currently apply and can personally endorse. All the same, iii 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 up across this information before, and then I began to dig…and dig…and dig to discover out some answers. The trouble is that the wording on the Participation Requirements is a flake ambiguous (specially in reference to eBooks):
"You will not appoint in whatsoever promotional, marketing, or other advert 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, yous will not engage in whatsoever promotional, marketing, or other advert activities in any offline way, including by using any of our or our affiliates' trademarks or logos (including any Amazon Mark), whatever Content, or whatsoever Special Link in connectedness with an offline promotion or in any other offline fashion (e.g., in any printed material, mailing, email or zipper to email, or other document, or any oral solicitation)." –Amazon Affiliates Program Participation Requirements, #6
See what I mean? It doesn't say y'all can and it doesn't say you can't. In my nigh panic, I abruptly e-mailed Amazon to hear it straight from the horse's mouth and this was their response:
"Y'all should not place an Amazon Affiliate link within your volume. However, you may add the link to your website within the content of your book."
There y'all accept it: You lotcannotuse your Amazon Chapter Links in an eBook, whether it is a Kindle version or PDF. Yous tin can use Amazon links, they merely tin can't be your affiliate links. And just so you lot know, all of the links in my eBook have been changed to remove my affiliate info.
three. Usingyouraffiliate link for itemsyoubuy:
Every bit much as it stinks, you cannot utilize your own chapter link to buy items (even if you use a different Amazon account to practice so). And you tin't ask friends or relatives to either (like to Google Adsense's policy on soliciting clicks on ads).
"You will not purchase any Product(s) through Special Links for employ by you or for resale or commercial utilize of whatsoever kind. Similarly, you lot volition not request or encourage whatsoever of your friends, relatives, or associates to purchase whatever Product(s) through Special Links for use past you or them or for resale or commercial utilize of any kind. Further, yous will not offering any Products on your site for resale or commercial use of whatever kind." –Amazon Associates Plan Participation Requirements, #29
UPDATE: Amazon just changed their operating agreement once again. This change greatly affects those bloggers who promote free eBooks on their blogs/websites:
"You lot Volition Not BE ELIGIBLE TO EARN Whatever Ad FEES DURING Whatever Calendar month IN WHICH Y'all MEET THE Post-obit CONDITIONS:
(a) 20,000 or more than 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 complimentary
Kindle eBooks."
Like I said, I would acceptneverknown 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. Fifty-fifty then, a few things were all the same a bit ambiguous. I share this information with you to spare you lot from e'er beingness reprimanded past Amazon for unknowingly breaking their rules.
Source: https://www.icanteachmychild.com/blogger-beware-3-ways-you-could-be-breaking-amazons-affiliate-program-rules/
0 Response to "Blogger Beware: 3 Ways You Could Be Breaking Amazon's Affiliate Program Rules"
Post a Comment