4 Easy Ways To Get Your Amazon Associates Account Banned

You have niche product review sites embedded with affiliate links to products from Amazon.com, or maybe you have created an Amazon affiliate store using FreshStore. The point is, you’ve done the work of setting everything up, and you’re even getting traffic to your sites and … BAM! your Amazon associates account gets shut down. Nooooooo!!! How can you possibly avoid this?  Read on …

Amazon Rules

Amazon has some rules regarding the use of their associates program and it is up to us to know them and adhere to them.
You may be thinking, “Who has time to read and understand all of that fine print?” I’m with you, it can be overwhelming. But you have to understand that Amazon has to do everything in its power to protect its good name, avoid legal problems and thwart scammers and abusers.
Here are just a couple of ways you can easily jeopardize your Amazon associate account:

Not Identifying Yourself As An Amazon Associate

Whether you have a review site, a store or even a blog, if you have ANY Amazon affiliate links, you MUST identify yourself as an Amazon associate. Here is the most common wording:

“[Insert your name or name of site] is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.”

Using Your Affiliate Links For Your Own Purchases

Amazon makes it clear that you may not purchase products during sessions initiated through your own Amazon associate links.

Embedding Affiliate Links In Emails, eBooks, PDFs and Printed Material

It may seem harmless to include an affiliate link in an email, digital and/or printed material that sends traffic directly to Amazon, but Amazon wants you to link to a page on your site that includes your affiliate links.

Using Amazon User Reviews as Your Own

Here is a direct quote from the documentation on program participation requirements:  “You will not display or otherwise use any of our customer reviews or star ratings, in part or in whole, on your site unless you have obtained a link to that customer review or star rating through the Product Advertising API …” Enough said.

Protect Your Amazon Associates Account

Go ahead and protect your investment of time and energies by familiarizing yourself with what’s expected of you as an associate. For your own peace of mind, take the time to peruse the following links:

Have questions? You can always …

 

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