Think Before You Amazon

I woke up today to find that Amazon had suddenly closed my affiliate account citing "that static prices were built-in to the website".

There was no further explanation however, they provided me with a link to the operating policies section of the program. They also gave me the blog post from my site which allegedly violated the rules.

I was both surprised and angry because I had taken the time before using their program to make sure I understood their rules as many on here have cautioned about the sheer amount of rules they have in the past.

After looking over my post and going through the policies, I finally realized what the issue was. It was a review post in which I listed both the price from Amazon and from the company's website (which I am also an affiliate of).

The price was cheaper on the company's website so I suggested that the reader purchase it there. The odd/creepy thing was that I didn't even have an amazon link with the price. Just provided it without linking.

Further review of the policies found that you apparently can't just give the current price on amazon for something without adding in a lengthy disclaimer from them.

The disclaimer is "Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product".

Before the disclaimer, you have to add the time and date for which the price was current. Example provided by Amazon-Amazon Price: $ 32.77 (as of 01/07/2008 14:11 PST- Details).

I had no idea you had to do that and I don't remember reading it anywhere so I'm not sure if it's new.

The funny thing was that I had listed the amazon price (with link) without that disclaimer on numerous other posts however, I never said anywhere else to buy the product else ware besides Amazon in those posts. It's funny that the second I said that it was deemed an immediate violation worthy of kicking me out.

It's pretty disturbing behavior from a company but I shouldn't be surprised with their history of creepy behaviors.

I was able to reapply to the program and get back into it immediately however, after speaking with a representative I was told that I would have to update every single link on my site with the affiliate code from my new affiliate account.

I unfortunately have many posts that included their links so it took me the better part of 5 hours to go through my ENTIRE site and update every post. I also had to add in the above disclaimer anytime I gave one of their prices, which does not look visually appeasing at all.

What was going to be a day spent writing a new post turned into a day going through every single page of my site.

I unfortunately have several review pages and posts based upon items only available on Amazon so staying out of the program just isn't an option right now.

If you are new here at Wealthy Affiliate, I would urge you to think long and hard before using Amazon links all over your site.

They have a mind-numbing amount of rules for what you can and can't do. I'm just about at 50 posts on my site. Many of which contain Amazon links. Imagine how long it would take for someone that has hundreds of posts?

While I can't eliminate them entirely, I'm afraid of this happening again. It definitely makes me FAR less likely to use their links in the future for fear of violating some rule from the almighty Amazon empire.