Trademarks Not Allowed In Affiliate URL

It means you basically can not use the name of the product you are promoting in your domain name.

You should have asked CJ for more information on this

al

In most cases that means you cant use name of product.

The first thing to understand it the different between a URL and a domain name. While they can be the same thing, understanding the differences is important.

A domain name is something like this:
google.com

You can consider this a URL, but it's best to think of it as just a domain name. Any file or folder on the domain google.com will have a URL (uniform resource location), which is a "web address" telling us were the file is on the domain google.com. For example:

google.com/help.html

To address the point in the OP, you can have trademarks in the URL AFTER the slash after the domain name, but you can't have trademarks to the left of the first slash in the URL, including in subdomains.

OK:
google.com/coors.html
google.com/photoshop.html

Not OK:
ILoveCoorsBeer.com
PhotoShopPlugins.com
coors.google.com

Think about this...pretty much every Wordpress blog will create a URL from the title of the post. If the title of a post is "best places to drink coors", the word "Coors" will be in the URL. But, it won't be in the domain name.

And it's perfectly fine to use trademarks in titles, posts and URLs. In the USA we have a right to express our facts and opinions. We don't have a right to make others think we are associated with, or part of a company (or celebrity) without their permission.

This is a good example of why strict definitions of certain words and phrases need to be learned and used. Trademarks in URLs are fine. Trademarks in domain names and subdomains are not.


PS. I need to add an affiliate site, or any other site for that matter, has the right to set their own rules. However, it isn't against the law to use trademarks in domain names. And it would be stupid for any affiliate platform to make a rule against using product trademarks in page titles and URLs.

Thanks everyone, I thought the trademark after the slash would be ok.

BUT - what confused me was the reference to "affiliate URL" which I thought could just mean your affiliate link from cj.com.

If not then URL is the whole link of the page your post promoting the product is on, which would mean you can't have their brand in the post title?

I asked cj.com yesterday but no one replied.

It's like Kurt said - I use it with AdWords and everything is OK. But, to be sure, ask CJ support.

Turns out they just meant in the domain, I hate it when people use inaccurate language.

Looks like the answer is: C. You've contacted a clueless support person.