Not that long ago, Amazon took a slap at US affiliates for their paid search traffic driving techniques:
After careful review of how we are investing our advertising resources, we have made the decision to no longer pay referral fees to Associates who send users to www.amazon.com, www.amazon.ca, or www.endless.com through keyword bidding and other paid search on Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other search engines. As of May 1, 2009, these paid search Associates will not be paid referral fees.
Now Amazon is targeting UK affiliates, according to the email that went out this week:
After careful review of our Associates programme, we have made the decision that as of February 1, 2010, we will no longer pay referral fees to Associates who send users to www.amazon.co.uk, http://astore.amazon.co.uk or www.javari.co.uk through keyword bidding or other paid search on Google, Bing, Yahoo!, or any other search engine, or their extended search networks. In connection with this change, as of February 1, 2010, we will no longer provide Associates who engage in such paid search activities with access to our Product Advertising API or datafeeds. If you are currently enrolled in the Associates Programme as a Paid Search Placement Associate and wish to continue to participate in the Programme after February 1, 2010, you must choose a new category that most accurately describes the method you will use to send users to the Amazon.co.uk or Javari.co.uk site. Of course, just choosing a new category is not sufficient – you will also need to stop sending traffic via paid search links, as you will no longer be paid for such traffic starting on February 1, regardless of what category you choose.
Search Engine Land pointed out that the email continues, and also bans certain types of organic search tactics:
In addition, as of February 1, 2010 we will no longer pay referral fees on purchases made by customers who are referred to www.amazon.co.uk or www.javari.co.uk via Free Search Results. Free Search Results are links containing an Associate’s tag displayed in a search engine’s free, natural, or organic search results in response to a search query which send customers directly to an Amazon site without the customer first being sent to an Associate’s site and the customer clicking on a link to arrive at the Amazon site.
Apparently now the only authorized way to run your Amazon affiliates is to build a website, drive traffic to your site, and from there let your customers click through to Amazon itself. Speculation is running wild over why the change in protocol by Amazon.
Building a website for affiliates is still rather simple however, with the free tools available it doesn’t take a huge site to drive affiliate traffic – in fact, any half decent webmaster should be able to get a small site going to drive their affiliate traffic. It’s cheaper in the long run, too, than paying for ads.
Tags: affiliates, Amazon, organic search, paid search