How quickly will Amazon ban you if you post affiliate links on social media and forums?
I think I messed up.
I've signed up with the Amazon Associates program about a mount ago in the hopes of making some passive income and started slowly building up a niche site. At the same time (out of curiosity, more than anything else), I've posted one of my affiliate links on a forum. After a couple of days I got an email from amazon stating "Congratulations, your application to the Amazon.com Associates Program has been approved..." I logged in to my associate account and saw that the link I posted actually made a couple of sells and that I accumulated more than 10$ in earnings. In the following days I read up more and more about Amazon and saw that posting links on websites that are not your own is not well perceived.
From the Amazon Associates FAQ: "Yes - the Associates Program does pay referral fees for qualifying sales generated from social networking sites like Twitter. As with all other means of driving traffic, Associates have to be sure that the method is permitted by the terms of the Associates Operating Agreement and, if applicable, the Product Advertising API License Agreement, as well as the terms and conditions of the specific site on which their links are posted. For example, MySpace does not permit its users to post affiliate marketing links on their profiles."
I'm a member of that forum for a couple of year's and I just didn't remember if the community's rules stated something about "posting affiliate links" by its members. I have clearly seen users post links to products and promote their own websites/monetized YouTube channels ecc ecc... So I thought nothing of it at the time. But since I'm paranoid I've decided to re-read the community rules. The community rules stated "no advertising" and not specifically affiliate links (but I'm assuming its the same in their eyes). I panicked and deleted my post and account and I started looking up online about people being banned from Amazon. I didn't find anyone telling a story similar to mine, I did find people complaining about being banned with no previous notice, no "Please stop what you are doing or we will terminate your account" email from Amazon. So obviously I started panicking even more. I saw a post on reddit that a guy called lethalfrag got banned from amazon by notifying his viewers on twitch that he is an Amazon Associate. Amazon stated that he was giving incentive to buy products using his links, which is against the rules. Does that mean that they actually go to where the affiliate links were posted and they read what else is posted on the website? Is it an automatic process (bots)? Do they double-back to the source of each link you post or do they only check the website you put in your Website List ? In my case the original page where I posted my link does not exist anymore because I deleted it, but they could hypothetically go to the main website and read if the community rules... Am I being too paranoid or am I doomed? If I'm doomed, when will they let me know?
Sorry for the wall of text.
TL;DR:
- Posted an amazon affiliate link on a forum that doesn't permit advertising.
- Deleted the post a couple of days later (about a week)
- Am I going to get banned from amazon in the future, or if I was going to get banned I would know it already?
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