Amazon Banning Link Shorteners/Cloakers?

LBrown

LBrown

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"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 was added to the Amazon TOS as of February 2 and I have not seen much chatter about it. I'm wondering how others are interpreting this.

Most link shortening services would now be against the rules, right? Unless the surrounding text made it clear it was a link to Amazon maybe?

Would link cloaking also be against the rules since it "makes it unclear that you are linking to an Amazon Site?"
 
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This just helps amazon build their brand and screws affiliates... If a user knows it's an amazon link they will just go to Amazon.com instead clicking your links and the affiliate will lose out on commission.
 
With the cloaking I use Brad's CPA redirector on several of my sites along with gocodes. I think they will benefit from this SEO-wise if cloaking is indeed included. I'm not too worried about losing on sales since I don't use any cloaker/redirector on a ton of my sites and products still sell well.

Anyone have an idea about how this is to be interpreted with cloaking?

I was thinking that with gocodes I could just change it to mysite.com/amazon/product-name/.
 
What's the point in cloaking your amazon links... People trust amazon and they will click your link insted of visiting amazon and search for the product you advertise... At least that's what I would do.
 
With Brad's CPA redirector you can use letters as your magic numbers so I'm changing those to something like amazon or amazon product, etc. I thought getting that working with this would be harder.

I'm just going ahead and changing all my links to be in compliance just in case. The Amazon plugin I use to autogenerate Amazon ads is going to be kind of a pain in the arse to change but whatever, I'll sleep better at night.
 
The reason they added that is so that you cannot use link shortners to clean your traffic.
 
Virus1 said:
The reason they added that is so that you cannot use link shortners to clean your traffic.
Click to expand...

That's kind of what I figured... I posted about it in the Amazon group and didn't get much of a response. The wording of the new rules could be interpreted to include cloaking too though and I don't want to give them any reason not to pay me. I'm almost done changing the URLs on my sites too, just my mega giant flagship site is left to do.
 
So this has started already? I figured using Bitly would be fine because it shortens it to amzn. Am I wrong?
 
how long have you been using brads cpa redirector?
 
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It would not surprise me if they have people reading the information on the forum..... especially info in our Amazon group.
 
Virus1 said:
It would not surprise me if they have people reading the information on the forum..... especially info in our Amazon group.
Click to expand...

valid point, ive edited my last post and will do the same in the group.

would like to discuss some of this further, obviously not publicly. Would you be willing to have a quick chat in im/skype/msn?


thanks
 
kpd905 said:
So this has started already? I figured using Bitly would be fine because it shortens it to amzn. Am I wrong?
Click to expand...

I have no idea when this takes effect; I'm assuming that it is immediately. Here is the whole update:

https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/help/operating/compare

I agree; I think bit.ly is still safe since it is clearly a link to Amazon.

strackal said:
how long have you been using brads cpa redirector?
Click to expand...

Since Pandas started rolling out. I don't use it to clean my traffic though.
 
if you use a shortening service with amazon you will get banned from amazon FOR LIFE... YOU WON'T EVER NEVER MAKE ANY DIME WITH AMAZON FOR YOUR ENTIRE LIFE!!

BYE BYE MONEY FROM AMAZON!
 
hansarina said:
if you use a shortening service with amazon you will get banned from amazon FOR LIFE... YOU WON'T EVER NEVER MAKE ANY DIME WITH AMAZON FOR YOUR ENTIRE LIFE!!

BYE BYE MONEY FROM AMAZON!
Click to expand...

Care to share what service you used? Was it something like bit.ly or was it a redirecting url from you own domain like mylaptopsite.com/product/delllaptop?
 
Just use Bitly. They are partnered with Amazon to use Amzn shortened links.
 
I'm pretty sure you can use the bitly shortener that makes the link amz.to
 
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