Is it hard to get approved by amazon? and when i was about to sign up, they asked for a website. what kind of site are they looking for? thank you BHW.

Also, in the USA is it not allowed to direct link?

There are so many Amazon programs it's hard to tell which one you're talking about. There's regular associate that you don't need a site for, then there are: marketplace assoc, marketplace premium, merchant, merchantpro, sellercentral merchant, and on and on. The worst thing is that some of the premium programs charge the exact same amount (around $40). I got into trouble once when phone support told me to click the "upgrade" button and pay $40, then it turned out I did it in the wrong place and they spiked my account. Took me a log time to straighten that one out. You can't just say "the seller acct I paid $40 for" because that applies to a few different ones. They REALLY could have changed the amounts by a dollar or two to make it clearer.

I've never had a problem with the associate account I got through my regular az customer account. they never asked me for a website either. When I was logged in looking at books I clicked one of the "sell yours!" links and was set up in a jiffy. That gave me an associate ID to insert into templates, and I can get widgets from my az associates page to put on other sites. But to do this you have to have BOUGHT something from them using that login. Once you're a customer it's easy to become an associate.

And what do you mean by direct link? that's what the program is for, someone clicks your az link and goes to their site. I's designed as a direct link.

If you're concerned just do a weebly or something and show them that. Or if you want to get more involved put up a site on your server or some free hosting account and use one of the CB (or other) templates that include az sidebars. Don't sweat it, it's not too big a deal.

I think Mayson meant the normal amazon program - they ask for a website. But he can use just "any" website, even from a friend, and change it later (or not, if he doesn't work with an own website).

I think amazon is still happy to get new associates (with their 24h cookie no wonder, nothing to loose for them) but I found eBay a really hard one...they seem to "pick" their affiliates by hand...

It's very easy.

Make a free blogger blog about football with nothing but football videos embedded from youtube.

Put about 20-30 videos, one each post. Just copy the video title for the post title and skip adding description.

If you already have ads from any other company, adsense, adbrite, ect, throw them up as if they approved you and amazon sees it, they will to.

Otherwise, you're most likely going to get accepted, just say you want to sell jerseys and autographed footballs from your site.

And that's it, your in like Flynn.

Pitty it's not this easy with ebay...

Another easy way is buy an amazon upfront store such as associate o matic or the easy store and you can make a niche store in few hours. Then register a domain name, u will have your own website with lots of products.

Simple way:

website url: www.google.com/adwords

description [don't copy this exactly]: "I plan on promoting Amazon using PPC [pay-per-click] advertising. I will be setting up specific, related landing pages which I will later add to my account.

Or the blogger route is fine, they approve everyone bar trademarked, race, porn, hate related sites..

will these methods of approval still work ?