5 Common Amazon Affiliate Mistakes You Might Be Making + Bonus WordPress Fix

Are you an Affiliate Marketer using Amazon Affiliates? Double check the 5 most common mistakes below to make sure you are following the rules.

#1: DON’T shorten or cloak links.

You MUST use the links that Amazon provides. You may not use any cloaking devices, redirects, or link shorteners (other than Amazon’s built in amazon.to). This means that the popular Affiliate Link tools such as Pretty Links and Thirsty Affiliates are not compatible with Amazon unless you use the non-cloak function.

Pay close attention to Participation Requirements #6: Content on Your Site

amazon-affiliate-cloak-links

#2: DON’T hide or use off-site links.

Amazon wants to be able to see the links. Don’t links in emails, PDFs, eBooks, or anywhere else Amazon can’t see them directly.

amazon-affiliate-off-site-links

#3: DO mention that you are an affiliate

amazon-affiliate-identify-yourself

#4: DON’T make purchases or ask friends to

amazon-affiliate-ask-friends

#5: DON’T use NoReferrer or NoOpener tags on links

I won’t bore you with the exact differences between the two here, but both of these tags interfere with Amazon’s ability to see where their traffic is coming from. That is not okay with them.

Unfortunately, if you have a WordPress website, this is usually added to your links. Here is how to fix that:

BONUS WordPress Fix:

Add the following to your theme’s functions.php file:

////This code removes from your new or updated posts add_filter( ‘wp_targeted_link_rel’, ‘my_targeted_link_rel_remove_noreferrer’,999); function my_targeted_link_rel_remove_noreferrer( $rel_values ) { return preg_replace( ‘/noreferrer\s*/i’, ”, $rel_values ); } //This code removes  from your new or updated posts add_filter( ‘wp_targeted_link_rel’, ‘my_targeted_link_rel_remove_’,999); function my_targeted_link_rel_remove_( $rel_values ) { return preg_replace( ‘/\s*/i’, ”, $rel_values ); } //remove on the frontend, *will still show up in the editor.* function my_formatter($content) { $replace = array(”” => “” ); $new_content = strtr($content, $replace); return $new_content; } //remove  on the frontend, *will still show up in the editor.* function _formatter($content) { $replace = array(“” => “” ); $new_content = strtr($content, $replace); return $new_content; } add_filter(‘the_content’, ‘_formatter’, 999); add_filter(‘the_content’, ‘my_formatter’, 999);

I highly encourage you to check out Amazon’s Operating Policies and Operating Agreement every so often and read through it carefully. There are a lot of things I didn’t mention here such as:

  • The rules about when you can and can’t put Amazon prices on your website
  • When you need to remove promotional content
  • Only using API to post user reviews
  • Don’t use paid search tools to get sales
  • Don’t offer incentives to buy
  • Make a sale within the first 90 days
If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments below. 

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