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lol I've already asked a question like this really similar, but I'm still not sure about this.
I've made various reviews of products which are on Amazon and I've simply t
Hi, Tim. Quick answer, no, you can't use them. Here's an excerpt from the Associates Program Participation Requirements." 28. 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 and you comply with the requirements set forth in the License Agreement."
You also can not screenshot any image and display it. It has to be the one Amazon provides with the link.
.You also cannot put any prices on your site either. I couldn't find this part, but I remember reading it and hearing someone here talking about it. I think you can use the price if you say "as of (date) the price was (price). I'll continue to look for it and let you know.
I just went through all this 2 days ago and had to remove the images I had there without a link plus all my customer reviews.
Hope this helps.
Oh... NOO!! Thanks for your helpful reply.. Why does Kyle not say this in the training?! Now I have to re-do all my reviews!! :((
Great now my reviews are really going to lack imagery cos a lot of the products I don't even own so I can't take any pictures myself and on the associates thing it only gives you like one image...
Yep, had to redo all of mine too. You can apply for the Product Advertising API and use the review that Amazon gives you. It's a pain in the arse.
You'll find that in your back office in one of the agreement documents. Here's the pricing thing. "You will include a date/time stamp adjacent to your display of pricing or availability information on your application if you obtain Product Advertising Content from a Data Feed, or if you call the Product Advertising API or refresh the Product Advertising Content displayed on your application less frequently than hourly. However, during the same day on which you requested and refreshed the pricing and availability information displayed on your application, you may omit the date portion of the stamp. Examples of acceptable messaging include:
Amazon.com Price: $32.77 (as of 01/07/2008 14:11 PST - Details)
Amazon.com Price: $32.77 (as of 14:11 PST - More info)
Additionally, you must either include the following disclaimer adjacent to the pricing or availability information or provide it via a hyperlink, popup box, scripted popup, or other similar method: "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." In the above examples, "Details" and "More info" would provide a method for the end user to read the disclaimer."
Thank you! I think I'm just going to put a link saying "Click here to check the price/availability of *product name*' Do you think that would be ok?
Thanks Jean. Glad I came across this before I added my images. I have before saved the product images and then linked to them with my affiliate ID, but that was years ago. I found this in the Associates Help section:
"Can I copy the images/reviews/logo/videos from Amazon.com to my website?
We don’t allow you to simply copy and paste directly from the Amazon.com website. You are welcome to use the linking tools available to you in Associates Central which provide images that are linked directly to Amazon.com."
Looks like I am going to email the manufacturer who advertise on Amazon and on their own website. I'll ask if I can use their images and then add my Amazon affiliate link
Hi Tim
Are you signed up to the Amazon Associates affiliate program? If so, you can get HTML links for their images to put up on your site.
If not, I'm not sure where you stand legally, but I would hope that common sense would prevail - you are promoting their products, and potentially sending people to buy things from them.
In the training, Kyle says screen shots can be used, but I'm not sure about clippings of images. I.e. If you had done ctrl+prt sc and copied the whole page, as opposed to grabbing just the image, then that is fine.
I say this, but I am in the same position, and have taken my chance with the odd snip here and there... just not from Amazon..
C
Thanks for your response. I haven't been using the links they give you for the product.... is this bad? I have just been taking screenshots... I hope this is ok...
The don't give you all the images of the product in the HTML links as well... which is a problem cos I wanted to use other images..
Hi Tim
I think they would prefer you to use the images they provide to do it all above board, but I appreciate they usually only give you one image per product which might not be ideal for a review. Could you contact the manufacturer directly and ask for press release images to use?
C
P.S. The way I interpret JeanL's response is she is talking solely about taking screen shots of the reviews on Amazon by people who have bought the product. It doesn't look to me like you are doing this, though?
Actually I was, I thought it'd make my review a bit better showing other people's opinions. I think she's also saying that screenshots of the product are not allowed either though "You also can not screenshot any image and display it. It has to be the one Amazon provides with the link." This is so annoying :\
I've finished changing one review now, it looks as boring as hell now though, lol
Oh, I guess you had changed it before I looked again then.. gutted :(
Yes, I'm with JeanL on the screenshots of images...
Could you tabulate some information about the product and compare it with others.. that would be visually appealing if you want to fill a void left by removing the review screenshot?
C
Hi
If you are an Amazon Associate then yes they give you permission to use product images as part of your promotions etc.
If you are not an Amazon associate then NO! You are then just stealing someone elses copyrighted pictures. I suggest you join their program! See link below.
https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/
The K70 is a great keyboard by the way, I'm using one to type this and have done since it came out. 9/10
All the best
Dave
I am an affiliate so I guess it's ok? Few... that was close, lol
Cool that you use Corsair! I am using a Perixx 5200 mechanical keyboard which isn't very good but oh well :)
If you ever do a review of Cyborgs Mice let me know, I have a Rat 7 and will happily chip in with a comment or two. I don't want to stalk your site with comments as I might look like a plant. No comment ; )
Dave
Wow the Rat 7 looks like one serious gaming mouse! I have only been looking at the Razer BlackAdder and some of Logitech's G series. I will probably do a review on the Rat 7 at some point and will let you know when it's published :)
You are not supposed to use anything from Amazon if you are not affiliate. Sorry for bad news.
So you have to become an affiliate.
In this case you may follow the procedure described in my post
http://justmythinking.com/get-amazon-affiliate-link
Jovo
I better be quick then and take them down, lol
I'm really frustrated about this :( It doesn't make sense, because you're helping Amazon by showing imagery and that makes people more likely to buy the product does it not?
See more comments
Is it ok to use amazon images in review posts?
lol I've already asked a question like this really similar, but I'm still not sure about this.
I've made various reviews of products which are on Amazon and I've simply t
In Level 3 lesson 4 Kyle has a price on his post. I don't know if this is live or for training purposes. And there is no 'as of date' on it.
And generally if you (and you should) read the terms and conditions the affiliate partners state very clearly what you can use or not use. Unfortunately most of the t & c are so convoluted that your eyes scim over stuff.
Hi, Tim. Quick answer, no, you can't use them. Here's an excerpt from the Associates Program Participation Requirements." 28. 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 and you comply with the requirements set forth in the License Agreement."
You also can not screenshot any image and display it. It has to be the one Amazon provides with the link.
.You also cannot put any prices on your site either. I couldn't find this part, but I remember reading it and hearing someone here talking about it. I think you can use the price if you say "as of (date) the price was (price). I'll continue to look for it and let you know.
I just went through all this 2 days ago and had to remove the images I had there without a link plus all my customer reviews.
Hope this helps.
Oh... NOO!! Thanks for your helpful reply.. Why does Kyle not say this in the training?! Now I have to re-do all my reviews!! :((
Great now my reviews are really going to lack imagery cos a lot of the products I don't even own so I can't take any pictures myself and on the associates thing it only gives you like one image...
Yep, had to redo all of mine too. You can apply for the Product Advertising API and use the review that Amazon gives you. It's a pain in the arse.
You'll find that in your back office in one of the agreement documents. Here's the pricing thing. "You will include a date/time stamp adjacent to your display of pricing or availability information on your application if you obtain Product Advertising Content from a Data Feed, or if you call the Product Advertising API or refresh the Product Advertising Content displayed on your application less frequently than hourly. However, during the same day on which you requested and refreshed the pricing and availability information displayed on your application, you may omit the date portion of the stamp. Examples of acceptable messaging include:
Amazon.com Price: $32.77 (as of 01/07/2008 14:11 PST - Details)
Amazon.com Price: $32.77 (as of 14:11 PST - More info)
Additionally, you must either include the following disclaimer adjacent to the pricing or availability information or provide it via a hyperlink, popup box, scripted popup, or other similar method: "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." In the above examples, "Details" and "More info" would provide a method for the end user to read the disclaimer."
Thank you! I think I'm just going to put a link saying "Click here to check the price/availability of *product name*' Do you think that would be ok?
Thanks Jean. Glad I came across this before I added my images. I have before saved the product images and then linked to them with my affiliate ID, but that was years ago. I found this in the Associates Help section:
"Can I copy the images/reviews/logo/videos from Amazon.com to my website?
We don’t allow you to simply copy and paste directly from the Amazon.com website. You are welcome to use the linking tools available to you in Associates Central which provide images that are linked directly to Amazon.com."
Looks like I am going to email the manufacturer who advertise on Amazon and on their own website. I'll ask if I can use their images and then add my Amazon affiliate link
Hi Tim
Are you signed up to the Amazon Associates affiliate program? If so, you can get HTML links for their images to put up on your site.
If not, I'm not sure where you stand legally, but I would hope that common sense would prevail - you are promoting their products, and potentially sending people to buy things from them.
In the training, Kyle says screen shots can be used, but I'm not sure about clippings of images. I.e. If you had done ctrl+prt sc and copied the whole page, as opposed to grabbing just the image, then that is fine.
I say this, but I am in the same position, and have taken my chance with the odd snip here and there... just not from Amazon..
C
Thanks for your response. I haven't been using the links they give you for the product.... is this bad? I have just been taking screenshots... I hope this is ok...
The don't give you all the images of the product in the HTML links as well... which is a problem cos I wanted to use other images..
Hi Tim
I think they would prefer you to use the images they provide to do it all above board, but I appreciate they usually only give you one image per product which might not be ideal for a review. Could you contact the manufacturer directly and ask for press release images to use?
C
P.S. The way I interpret JeanL's response is she is talking solely about taking screen shots of the reviews on Amazon by people who have bought the product. It doesn't look to me like you are doing this, though?
Actually I was, I thought it'd make my review a bit better showing other people's opinions. I think she's also saying that screenshots of the product are not allowed either though "You also can not screenshot any image and display it. It has to be the one Amazon provides with the link." This is so annoying :\
I've finished changing one review now, it looks as boring as hell now though, lol
Oh, I guess you had changed it before I looked again then.. gutted :(
Yes, I'm with JeanL on the screenshots of images...
Could you tabulate some information about the product and compare it with others.. that would be visually appealing if you want to fill a void left by removing the review screenshot?
C
Hi
If you are an Amazon Associate then yes they give you permission to use product images as part of your promotions etc.
If you are not an Amazon associate then NO! You are then just stealing someone elses copyrighted pictures. I suggest you join their program! See link below.
https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/
The K70 is a great keyboard by the way, I'm using one to type this and have done since it came out. 9/10
All the best
Dave
I am an affiliate so I guess it's ok? Few... that was close, lol
Cool that you use Corsair! I am using a Perixx 5200 mechanical keyboard which isn't very good but oh well :)
If you ever do a review of Cyborgs Mice let me know, I have a Rat 7 and will happily chip in with a comment or two. I don't want to stalk your site with comments as I might look like a plant. No comment ; )
Dave
Wow the Rat 7 looks like one serious gaming mouse! I have only been looking at the Razer BlackAdder and some of Logitech's G series. I will probably do a review on the Rat 7 at some point and will let you know when it's published :)
You are not supposed to use anything from Amazon if you are not affiliate. Sorry for bad news.
So you have to become an affiliate.
In this case you may follow the procedure described in my post
http://justmythinking.com/get-amazon-affiliate-link
Jovo
I better be quick then and take them down, lol
I'm really frustrated about this :( It doesn't make sense, because you're helping Amazon by showing imagery and that makes people more likely to buy the product does it not?
See more comments
Hey I would really like some opinions on my new site design as I have changed my theme.
My website is: thepcprogrammer.com
Please tell me what you think and if there
Left a message on your site. I looks good but I do agree with sSchovajsa about some light text, especially the light blue in the darker blue banner. it doesn't really stand out. Try something exotic, maybe bright yellow or make it white and bold.
Yeah unfortunately I can't change the text colour, I'll have to change the banner background instead :\
Thanks for the comment btw :)
Have you asked that question? Somewhere, somehow someone could have the knowledge to change the text colour. Probably in some strange code.
lol yeah I could use CSS to achieve it.
Surround the text in a
color: red; } or something. I guess I could install Custom CSS plugin which I used to use as I don't like editing the theme files directly.
Cool, good for you! I taught myself CSS a while ago, but can still remember enough to do a few basic things :)
Tim I think your site look great! The only thing I might do is try and darken the text some. Great Job! You have lots of information for the PC Guru. God bless you!
Yeah that's my only problem with this, it doesn't have an option to change the text colour in the theme options, you can change all the other colours though! I guess I'll either have to make the header background darker so the text stands out more, or make a logo that includes the slogan in it. I don't mind the text in the actual posts though, it doesn't look too light, you can read it fine. But I think the text on the header was what you were talking about?
I was actually speaking about the post itself. It is legible, would be nice if you could darken the text a little, but if you can't it's okay.
That's ok. I had no problem seeing it. Your site is still great and the information is wonderful. Great Job!
It looks good and also it's mobile responsive which is important. I would evaluate whether you really need to add so many images, it can definitely slow down your site loading which can frustrate visitors. I would also change the header to something more clear and bright, white writing on black is not always very appealing (you can customise your header background in the wordpress theme editor). Let me know if you need any other advice.
Thanks for your feedback! I've changed the colour scheme a bit, tell me if it looks any better please, I'm not sure thanks!
I checked your site speed here. http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/RFVXZ/http://thepcprogrammer.com/
Over 50% of the load speed time is taken by images, are you optimizing before you upload?
Otherwise I like the look and can see you've put a lot of work into it. Not sure I like the sidebar left and right as it gives only a narrow space for your content, but that's a personal preference. :)
I don't know how to optimize images, lol. How do I do that?
And also about the sidebar thing, that was why I changed my theme because my previous one only allowed for one sidebar with widgets and I wanted to spread widgets in different places, may change it again in the future though cos I also not sure if I like how the content is crammed in the middle because everything looks really squashed when you're on a small screen but looks ok on larger monitors I think. Thanks for your response, can you tell me how you optimise images? Thanks!
You can do it with Paint Optimize images using Paint from Windows 7 I use Photoshop, the save for web option.
Or this is an online tool http://www.imageoptimizer.net/Pages/Home.aspx
If you're looking at themes, set up a siterubix test site and play around with the themes in there first. That way you can see all options etc available beforehand. Some themes give you the option to change the width of the side bars, don't forget, your content is the most important thing not fancy widgets!
Tempera theme, comes with a ton of options and I know Frontier has sliders to change width of side bar and content boxes.
Good luck! :)
Thank you for the suggestions, I'll take a look at some other options. The theme I'm using now has options for the sidebars which I have not explored fully yet, I'll take a look.
So if I optimise all the images in my media library, will it change the images on the posts? I assume so because they're pointing to the same URL, but just want to check.
You'd need to redo the images on the posts as you'll be changing them outwith the media library then re-uploading.
I did this for a friends site. I downloaded all the images, optimized, then went through the posts one by one and changed the image, deleting the larger ones as I went. Hope that makes sense!
Ah yes, that would make sense. Thanks, this looks like a pain to do but I'm sure it will be worth it in the future. I just went on one of your sites and noticed it loads extremely fast, is this because of your simplicity of your site or because of the WA hosting, or both? My site is hosted on GoDaddy not WA which may be a factor, I'm not sure.
It will be a combination, I host here at WA and also optimise images. I've 17 plugins but make sue they are well coded and don't slow my site down. If it was the quilting site then that is a paid theme, Genesis, which is known for fast load times and mobile responsiveness.
I know redoing the images will take time and yes, it is a pain, but def worth it in the long run!
Awesome, yeah it was the tools for quilting site. I'll start optimising all my images as soon as I can, thanks for your help :)
Hi Tim,
your site looks professional, and your content is very well written. I liked the images you had embedded in your review articles.
On improvement side, I think you need to work on the right side panel, it slows down your site. Every time I open new page or post, that widget reloads. And it takes more than 10 seconds.
Also consider using smaller image sizes as "featured image", it might be one reason why your homepage takes over 40-50s to load at first time. I tried with windows and mac, Chome, Safari and IE, behaviour was the same.
I'm not an expert, but I suggest you investigate your widgets, ads, images and plugins on the first page. Slowness might be also caused by your new theme, if it used to work better earlier. Now your site was so slow that it was disturbing, it would normally make me leave.
But otherwise I liked your site, your usage of images and pro written content was very convincing. I liked the layout and favicon, maybe you could consider adding an logo on top bar?
Thanks for your feedback :) Yeah, slowness has always been a concern I've had, I was trying to optimize my site a few weeks ago with this plugin I found, and Jetpack was causing a lot of slowness so I disabled that. I have a feeling that the slowness now is either because of the theme or the social media follow buttons on the right widget or the tabbed widget. I'll investigate the issue and see if I can find anything.. Thanks a lot!
I've just ran my performance checker plugin and a lot of the slowness is caused by the tab widget on the right, that's a shame because I really liked that widget :(
Not sure what to do now :\
See more comments
Hey I would really like some opinions on my new site design as I have changed my theme.
My website is: thepcprogrammer.com
Please tell me what you think and if there
Left a message on your site. I looks good but I do agree with sSchovajsa about some light text, especially the light blue in the darker blue banner. it doesn't really stand out. Try something exotic, maybe bright yellow or make it white and bold.
Yeah unfortunately I can't change the text colour, I'll have to change the banner background instead :\
Thanks for the comment btw :)
Have you asked that question? Somewhere, somehow someone could have the knowledge to change the text colour. Probably in some strange code.
lol yeah I could use CSS to achieve it.
Surround the text in a
color: red; } or something. I guess I could install Custom CSS plugin which I used to use as I don't like editing the theme files directly.
Cool, good for you! I taught myself CSS a while ago, but can still remember enough to do a few basic things :)
Tim I think your site look great! The only thing I might do is try and darken the text some. Great Job! You have lots of information for the PC Guru. God bless you!
Yeah that's my only problem with this, it doesn't have an option to change the text colour in the theme options, you can change all the other colours though! I guess I'll either have to make the header background darker so the text stands out more, or make a logo that includes the slogan in it. I don't mind the text in the actual posts though, it doesn't look too light, you can read it fine. But I think the text on the header was what you were talking about?
I was actually speaking about the post itself. It is legible, would be nice if you could darken the text a little, but if you can't it's okay.
That's ok. I had no problem seeing it. Your site is still great and the information is wonderful. Great Job!
It looks good and also it's mobile responsive which is important. I would evaluate whether you really need to add so many images, it can definitely slow down your site loading which can frustrate visitors. I would also change the header to something more clear and bright, white writing on black is not always very appealing (you can customise your header background in the wordpress theme editor). Let me know if you need any other advice.
Thanks for your feedback! I've changed the colour scheme a bit, tell me if it looks any better please, I'm not sure thanks!
I checked your site speed here. http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/RFVXZ/http://thepcprogrammer.com/
Over 50% of the load speed time is taken by images, are you optimizing before you upload?
Otherwise I like the look and can see you've put a lot of work into it. Not sure I like the sidebar left and right as it gives only a narrow space for your content, but that's a personal preference. :)
I don't know how to optimize images, lol. How do I do that?
And also about the sidebar thing, that was why I changed my theme because my previous one only allowed for one sidebar with widgets and I wanted to spread widgets in different places, may change it again in the future though cos I also not sure if I like how the content is crammed in the middle because everything looks really squashed when you're on a small screen but looks ok on larger monitors I think. Thanks for your response, can you tell me how you optimise images? Thanks!
You can do it with Paint Optimize images using Paint from Windows 7 I use Photoshop, the save for web option.
Or this is an online tool http://www.imageoptimizer.net/Pages/Home.aspx
If you're looking at themes, set up a siterubix test site and play around with the themes in there first. That way you can see all options etc available beforehand. Some themes give you the option to change the width of the side bars, don't forget, your content is the most important thing not fancy widgets!
Tempera theme, comes with a ton of options and I know Frontier has sliders to change width of side bar and content boxes.
Good luck! :)
Thank you for the suggestions, I'll take a look at some other options. The theme I'm using now has options for the sidebars which I have not explored fully yet, I'll take a look.
So if I optimise all the images in my media library, will it change the images on the posts? I assume so because they're pointing to the same URL, but just want to check.
You'd need to redo the images on the posts as you'll be changing them outwith the media library then re-uploading.
I did this for a friends site. I downloaded all the images, optimized, then went through the posts one by one and changed the image, deleting the larger ones as I went. Hope that makes sense!
Ah yes, that would make sense. Thanks, this looks like a pain to do but I'm sure it will be worth it in the future. I just went on one of your sites and noticed it loads extremely fast, is this because of your simplicity of your site or because of the WA hosting, or both? My site is hosted on GoDaddy not WA which may be a factor, I'm not sure.
It will be a combination, I host here at WA and also optimise images. I've 17 plugins but make sue they are well coded and don't slow my site down. If it was the quilting site then that is a paid theme, Genesis, which is known for fast load times and mobile responsiveness.
I know redoing the images will take time and yes, it is a pain, but def worth it in the long run!
Awesome, yeah it was the tools for quilting site. I'll start optimising all my images as soon as I can, thanks for your help :)
Hi Tim,
your site looks professional, and your content is very well written. I liked the images you had embedded in your review articles.
On improvement side, I think you need to work on the right side panel, it slows down your site. Every time I open new page or post, that widget reloads. And it takes more than 10 seconds.
Also consider using smaller image sizes as "featured image", it might be one reason why your homepage takes over 40-50s to load at first time. I tried with windows and mac, Chome, Safari and IE, behaviour was the same.
I'm not an expert, but I suggest you investigate your widgets, ads, images and plugins on the first page. Slowness might be also caused by your new theme, if it used to work better earlier. Now your site was so slow that it was disturbing, it would normally make me leave.
But otherwise I liked your site, your usage of images and pro written content was very convincing. I liked the layout and favicon, maybe you could consider adding an logo on top bar?
Thanks for your feedback :) Yeah, slowness has always been a concern I've had, I was trying to optimize my site a few weeks ago with this plugin I found, and Jetpack was causing a lot of slowness so I disabled that. I have a feeling that the slowness now is either because of the theme or the social media follow buttons on the right widget or the tabbed widget. I'll investigate the issue and see if I can find anything.. Thanks a lot!
I've just ran my performance checker plugin and a lot of the slowness is caused by the tab widget on the right, that's a shame because I really liked that widget :(
Not sure what to do now :\
See more comments
In Level 3 lesson 4 Kyle has a price on his post. I don't know if this is live or for training purposes. And there is no 'as of date' on it.
And generally if you (and you should) read the terms and conditions the affiliate partners state very clearly what you can use or not use. Unfortunately most of the t & c are so convoluted that your eyes scim over stuff.