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Amazon Associates and URL shortners

by cooler1
4 replies
If you are using a PHP redirect to link to Amazon and you have numerous links on the page, how frequently and how specifically do you need to state on the page that the link goes to Amazon?

The changes to the operating agreement on 2nd February says that you cannot use a link shortner in a manner that makes it unclear you are linking to Amazon. However, im not fully sure what "unclear" means. Does it mean that every link or image needs to state it goes to Amazon or do you just need one disclosure on your site?
#amazon #shortners #url
  • Profile picture of the author lukedidit
    The FTC state "Consumers must be able to see the disclosure when they are viewing the endorsement and at the point of the link to the seller’s website.”

    I did a fair amount of research on this and my findings show that you need a disclaimer on every page which has an affiliate link, but it does not need to be within the link / image itself, you can still shorten, but the text should easy to see at the point of entry (may not be front page if its organic search), and not off on an about / privacy page:

    “yoursite.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to (“your site” (amazon.com, or endless.com, MYHABIT.com, SmallParts.com, or AmazonWireless.com).”

    I have quite a few amazon sites, so protect my assets I wrote a plugin - details are in my signature or here:

    Amazon Affiliate Statement Plugin

    Some further reading:

    FTC Guidelines Include Affiliate Links | Lovell Communications

    The FTC

    Warning to All Affiliate Marketers | Marketing With Sara
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  • Profile picture of the author cooler1
    @lukedidit. Thanks for the advice. What about if you already have a seperate page on your site with the disclosure, does this mean that if you put the disclosure in the footer also, then Google will deem this as duplicate content?

    I know it doesn't matter whether the disclosure page gets ranked or not, just wondering whether this would negatively affect the site overall.
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  • Profile picture of the author lukedidit
    Footer is OK, that will cover your whole site and don't worry about a footer creating a duplicate content penalty alongside a page with the same text, you could block the disclosure page from crawlers in your robots.txt though if you wanted to be 100% worry free.
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    • Profile picture of the author cooler1
      Originally Posted by lukedidit View Post

      Footer is OK, that will cover your whole site and don't worry about a footer creating a duplicate content penalty alongside a page with the same text, you could block the disclosure page from crawlers in your robots.txt though if you wanted to be 100% worry free.
      Would it be OK to delete the seperate disclosure page and just have the disclosure in the footer? Im not sure if deleting a page affects the overall ranking of a site or whether that just applies for pages with lots of content.
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