Amazon Affiliate banned

Hey,
Today I recieved this message from Amazon:

Hello,

Weve reviewed your website and determined that it doesnt meet the criteria for acceptance into Amazon Associates.
It appears to be identical to many other websites. Sites without original content wont be ranked highly by search engines, which is the same as being invisible on the internet. As a result, the sites dont drive meaningful traffic that leads to orders placed on Amazon []. Often, these types of sites are created by companies whose business is selling the completed sites for use in connection with affiliate marketing programs.

Accordingly, weve closed the account under which you had been temporarily approved and that approval has now ended. Future applications using this website will most likely be rejected as well.

We dont recommend that people open new websites just for the purpose of becoming Amazon Associates in most cases we dont feel that it would justify the effort or expense required. You would need to get in contact with the web hosting company that sold you this site for a refund or cancellation of the site itself. Amazon [] doesnt charge any fee for participation in the Associates program. In addition, Amazon [] does not provide this type of service nor are we able to comment on any business other than our own.

Thank you for your interest in Amazon [] Associates.

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Now I do not get it. I wrote all the content by myself, so it is unique. My site was 2 months old and got one sale. I reviewed some items I have never seen being reviewed elsewhere. I guess my affiliate account is closed for good. What can I do? Can somebody tell me how can I at least ask them to tell me which sites have I supposedly copied? Since I really have no idea what could be similar. Where can I go with questions?

P.s.: I had to remove linking in the Amazon site that was in mail - that is what [] stand for

Did you buy a packaged Amazon affiliate site from some place?

Nope, I built it from scratch

You posted all your articles on one day? thats odd

I did not do anything like posting all articles on one day. I just spoke with support and they said they will revise site... I forgot to save the conversation, DAMN, because it was interesting actually.
Basically I followed all the things in their terms and conditions and I have 15 posts and 7 pages of content. All that content is quite extensive so I put quite some work in it.

I will let you know how it goes.

If you want, I can take a look at the site. My guess is you posted prices on your website or didnt have a TOS that said you were an affiliate.

Did you check to make sure no one stole your content?

Definitely make sure you fight the ban though. Something similar happened to me, but it was all just a misunderstanding and everything is fine now.

Is your site look like an eccommerce site?
Are you using any of their content (product description, details, etc) and post it to your site?
Do you have any other content which is not related to any amazon products (informational articles)?

gbgbgb said:

Did you check to make sure no one stole your content?

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gbgbgb said:

Definitely make sure you fight the ban though. Something similar happened to me, but it was all just a misunderstanding and everything is fine now.

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this is very rare, what did you do to get your affiliate account re-opened?

mucko said:

..... All that content is quite extensive so I put quite some work in it..

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If the content is (was) quite extensive than it's pretty obvious that you DID NOT put quite some work in it, just because you paid 'an arm and a leg' for it, that doesn't mean that the person who took your money put a lot of work in it either. Amazon is no longer interest in copy cats websites that provide no value whatsoever. So buying so called 'ready to go' packages promising you xxxxx $ a month doesn't cut it no more. Just think about it, if the packages were so successful the people selling them would be cashing on amazon's commissions instead of selling them to people like you. Why would anyone sell a website that brings let's say $500.00 a month for $50.00 ? It doesn't make business sense.

bahus said:

If the content is (was) quite extensive than it's pretty obvious that you DID NOT put quite some work in it, just because you paid 'an arm and a leg' for it, that doesn't mean that the person who took your money put a lot of work in it either. Amazon is no longer interest in copy cats websites that provide no value whatsoever. So buying so called 'ready to go' packages promising you xxxxx $ a month doesn't cut it no more. Just think about it, if the packages were so successful the people selling them would be cashing on amazon's commissions instead of selling them to people like you. Why would anyone sell a website that brings let's say $500.00 a month for $50.00 ? It doesn't make business sense.

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Lol!
It is quite extensive that meant the content is not short and put effort to make it.

"Basically I followed all the things in their terms and conditions and I have 15 posts and 7 pages of content. All that content is quite extensive so I put quite some work in it."

OP mentioned that the site was made from scratch and content was written by him. In addition, the content are not short and he also put effort to produce content.

OP, let us know how it went and what Amazon decided.

Vanrithy said:

Lol!
It is quite extensive that meant the content is not short and put effort to make it.

"Basically I followed all the things in their terms and conditions and I have 15 posts and 7 pages of content. All that content is quite extensive so I put quite some work in it."

OP mentioned that the site was made from scratch and content was written by him. In addition, the content are not short and he also put effort to produce content.

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Sorry about that 'extensive' which I took for expensive. My bad. Either way, there must be something wrong with that website because amazon thinks it is a copycat. His website may have original content but if it looks like one of those websites from 'niche pursuits' case studies with those lame tables and what not, I'm not surprised that he got that letter, there are more and more of them popping up all over the net. And all of them look the same (people are so lazy). So seeing the same layout or template over and over again, no wonder amazon thinks that someone is selling them. And I do stand by my comment regarding those so called 'ready to go packages'.

Either the site is not related to their category listings, you did some false steps or violated account rules.

This is something worried. Cookie cutter sites are usually frown upon by AdSense but Amazon is the last one thought which would do so since They don't pay anything unless someone buy something from there.

Since they already rejected and mention they wouldn't take that since if you apply I wonder if could share it with. I'm sure all Amazon Affiliates here would want to see what went wrong with the site. Specially since you say site has content and everything.

But one important thing is you are not banned from Amazon. Just have just rejected this site.

"Accordingly, weve closed the account under which you had been temporarily approved and that approval has now ended. Future applications using this website will most likely be rejected as well."

So all you have to do is apply with an other site.

antichrist: I cannot send you PM, because I do not have 15 posts yet.
I said I followed all of their guidlines, so I have Amazon affiliate agreement and stuff like that.
bahus: I do have those lame tables from niche pursuits. I just thought they are good and saw some other sites have it, googled that and thought it is a good thing to have. I do not see why am I forbidden to use a certain plugin just because many other people are using it? I am not aware of the niche pursuits site case studies, I only read the article about tables there, that is why I included them.

I doubt that design of my website looks very similar to some other website in my niche. As far as I checked, it does not.

As you know, now the account is being revised. I asked them from which website did I copy the content and they said that content is too general and that these information can be found on internet. Apparently they check the content and they decided that my content is not quality enough. That I should (probably) put more feelings and personal experiences when reviewing products if I understood correctly. But then again, they said that it could not be a problem with just reviews, but also with my guides. I am not sure how can I include feelings when writing facts at my guides.
Basically they did not give me exact reason why they rejected my account. Nor do they have to if you read their message correctly. The guy from support was very helpful, but he did not make a decision, so he could not be more specific.

BlueArrow: this is nice to hear. However, I will not apply again with another website if I do not know what I did wrong this time. And nobody told me exactly what I should do, but they just gave me general guidelines, which may or may not hold in future. Also I do not see many other people having similar troubles.

That`s weird cause i know a lot of Amazon affiliates who have 100% copied content (including me) and never received a ban. If you want to earn with Amazon again then just register with Viglink or Skimlinks and you`re done.

Cheers

mucko said:

BlueArrow: this is nice to hear. However, I will not apply again with another website if I do not know what I did wrong this time. And nobody told me exactly what I should do, but they just gave me general guidelines, which may or may not hold in future. Also I do not see many other people having similar troubles.

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This is why asked you to post the site here. Even thought they haven't given you a sensiable reason and you can't figure maybe someone here will able to shade some insight. I know you might be hesitate because someone might copy the site but I don't think it would happen.

Amazon seldom so something like this and I don't think it's worth giving up whole Amazon program just because they rejected one site.

Given that topics here get few thousand, usually tens of thousand views, I feel a bit uncomfortable at sharing it with so many people who are not buyers anyway. I might still choose different affiliate and keep the site. If people want to view a site to see what is wrong, you can write a PM, but please stay clear from online forum.

peetrike: I am unaware of Viglink and Skimlinks, I do not know what that is.

"I do not see why am I forbidden to use a certain plugin just because many other people are using it? "
" I am not sure how can I include feelings when writing facts at my guides."

It's not the plugin but how you may be using it, I haven't seen your website so I'm guessing here. If you have in there few products and compare them only on technical basis, for example, this one has 1 gb of mem that one 3 and so on, and using dollar sign ($$$) to indicate how much they cost, that's not really a helpful guide. You need to translate those tech facts and show people what they'll for them. From my example above, if a product has 1 gb of mem tell them how many pictures they can put in there, what does it mean in terms of using the product. Another example, .....if a computer has 1 gb of ram, tell them it very basic and good for personal use, but you won't be able to have x number of applications open up at the same time, also not good enough for photo and video editing, so if you're planning to do so here is a better choice..... with 4 gb of ram you can do the following..... No table needed.This is how you make it personal and put feeling in it. Instead stating dry facts, they get those on amazon website.

Also write from personal perspective, like "I think that...", or '..here is what I think about .....' this way, you'll make it even more personal and put more feeling into your writing.

Just because someone else is doing something, that doesn't mean that's ok to do it. May be they've seen enough of those 'guides in a table' and decided enough is enough. It sucks because you got caught up in it and your account was closed.

If I were you, I wouldn't give up on it. I'd sit back, rethink and redo my website and try again. It's a program with big potential and worth the effort. Good luck!

Yeah I understand if it's a good niche you won't want to post it in a public forum.