Amazon Associates not allowing use of online forum

[briansol]

it literally says 'forum' after customer review.

They key take away is customer-generated context. They want author original content only it seems.

 

[djbaxter]

No. If anything the key in that paragraph is "special links" - everything else is secondary clarification of that:

(p) You will not include any Special Links in any content that you place on an Amazon Site (for example, in connection with any advertising service available through an Amazon Site or in a customer review, forum, Wish List, guide, or any other customer-generated context available on an Amazon Site).

Additionally, that needs to be interpreted in the context of the entire document, starting from the top (emphasis added):

Your Site(s) must contain original content and be publicly available via the website address provided in the application. You must identify your Site(s) in your application. We will evaluate your application and notify you of its acceptance or rejection. Your Site will not be eligible for inclusion in the Associates Program, and you cannot include any Special Links or Product Advertising Content on it, if your Site is unsuitable. Unsuitable Sites include those that:

(a) promote or contain sexually explicit or obscene materials,

(b) promote violence or contain violent materials,

(c) promote or contain false, deceptive, libelous or defamatory materials,

(d) promote or contain materials or activity that is hateful, harassing, harmful, invasive of another’s privacy, abusive, or discriminatory (including on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, or age),

(e) promote or undertake illegal activities,

(f) are directed toward children or knowingly collect, use, or disclose personal information from children under 13 years of age or other applicable age threshold (as defined by applicable laws and regulations); or violate any applicable laws, ordinances, rules, regulations, orders, licenses, permits, guidelines, codes of practice, industry standards, self-regulatory rules, judgments, decisions, or other requirements of any applicable governmental authority related to child protection (for example, if applicable, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (15 U.S.C. §§ 6501-6506) or any regulations promulgated thereunder or the Children’s Online Protection Act);

(g) include any trademark of Amazon or its affiliates, or a variant or misspelling of a trademark of Amazon or its affiliates in any domain name, subdomain name, in any “tag” or Associates ID, or in any username, group name, or other identifier on any social networking site (see a non-exhaustive list of our trademarks listed on our Non-Exhaustive Trademark Table); or

(h) otherwise violate any intellectual property rights.

And as I said, I was approved for and have been running Amazon ads and affiliate links on various forum sites since the mid-90s without incident.

If you are being rejected, take a close look at anything on your site that may violate their list of exclusions (AdSense has a similar list). If your site is mostly content not visible to guests, that's a violation. If your site primarily contains nonoriginal reviews of other content or products, that would be a violation. If your site contains adult content or misleading information (e.g., misleading or unsourced medical information), that's a violation.

And if your forum is new and has little or no traffic, you'll be rejected for that as well.

 

[briansol]

I still don't understand your ads since the mid 70's comment. Amazon wasn't even a company until the 90's. Founded‎: ‎July 5, 1994

My site has been up for 20 years and has nearly 2m posts and is 100% open save for the moderator forum. it's not a site size or content problem.

 

[netzenrob]

yup they are referring to an Amazon Site forum, not independent forums, it's a common mistake. Resubmit.

 

[briansol]

ok, i tried to submit an appeal and their form doesn't work. keeps saying invalid subject even though it's a drop down. ugh

 

[djbaxter]

I still don't understand your ads since the mid 70's comment. Amazon wasn't even a company until the 90's. Founded‎: ‎July 5, 1994

My site has been up for 20 years and has nearly 2m posts and is 100% open save for the moderator forum. it's not a site size or content problem.

Yes I'm sorry. I meant the mid-90s. I didn't even have a forum until the mid-90s. I never did have a good sense of time

 

[Shibby]

I'm having the same problem. Registered an account 3 times, keep getting rejected after about 2 weeks and after making some good money. They just keep saying that 'it's an online forum' and they're not allowed. There's absolutely NO WAY to talk with them on the phone for the past 3 months, and live chat is worthless. I've showed the rep in chat where their own guidelines says ON AN AMAZON SITE, and they still just say "the techs have the final say and your account is rejected.'

I can't believe how horrible their support is. They're clearly wrong according to their own guidelines. I don't know what else to do.

 

[netzenrob]

Sup bro.
Use your skills like I did, going direct to the first line support monkeys is useless. Find a senior amazon assoc on LinkedIn msg them and they will sort it out or email you a contact. I have email for head of UK associate for example just for doing this and getting my site approved and it’s a forum.

boss mode.

 

[Rhody]

They canceled my account this week, too, saying that since the forum required a login/account it did not qualify.

 

[Joeychgo]

They are going through many changes lately -- They stopped working with the bundlers like Viglink and Skimlinks recently also

 

[Shibby]

How would I even go about finding that info? Never used Linkedin before. Thanks for the tip! This is crazy, I can't believe there's been no phone support for 3 months because of the 'pandemic.' Absolutely insane!

 

[NealC]

As I probably stated before, the issue is not "online forum" but something else in your history with your affiliate account usage. You'll have to contact them typically via phone and hope for the best.

 

[Shibby]

There's no other issues that I know of. Plenty of traffic, quality content, etc. They continue to say it's because it's an 'online forum.' 3 times now.

 

[NealC]

Obviously they are a mystery, you'll just have to call and plead.

 

[Shibby]

Yea, if only there were a way to call them. lol

 

[netzenrob]

register a trial of linkedin premium, find amazon associates people who know what they are doing like directors of heads for your country and send them an in-msg on linkedin, explain the issue and say it's an external FORUM not an AMAZON forum and ask for a contact email of someone you can msg directly to sort it out. This is what I had to do.

Yes it's a massive ballache but if you value your Amazon associate $ revenue you will do it.

 

[Pol57]

It's nothing to do with history of account usage, I've been with them for 5+ years with blogs but my forum was banned after a week. I hope they do acataully pay the $16 earnt. They really should review first.

​

Hello,​

​

We’ve now reviewed your application to the Associates Program. Unfortunately, it did not meet our program requirements. As a result, we have closed the account under which you had been temporarily approved.​

​

Why?​

The site you listed is an online forum. This is in violation of our Program Policies, found here: https://affiliate-program.amazon.co.uk/help/operating/policies. ​

 

[Kier]

I have reached out to Amazon on behalf of XenForo and forum owners everywhere to seek a rewrite of section 6P.

 

[Wildcat Media]

Posting your affiliate links on another site, whether it is an Amazon site or not can get you in trouble and cause your associate status to be withdrawn.

I think this is the key right here. I tried to sign up to add Amazon Australia to our mix. Now keep in mind, for all my affiliate accounts, I use an email domain that matches only one of the sites. Since they saw that the site I signed up with did not match my domain email, that is when they closed the Australia affiliate account.

That mismatch is probably what they are noticing, and this would have been early on due to manual approval of the newly listed forum.

So maybe I need to sign up as I did before, but give them only the one forum that matches the email domain. Then after a few months once they have formally approved it (even though they don't give you notice of that), start using the links in the other forum.

Yet...don't they only allow one affiliate account per person? So if I had to break down and split everything up per site...I couldn't do it??

Seems like they find any way not to pay a commission.

 

[Pol57]

Seems like they find any way not to pay a commission.

I really wouldn't think too much into things other than this. They can be really picky and find any reason to reject people.

Forums are user generated and not high quality content so are unlikely to be favored. Frustrating as just affilating the links was earning a not insignificant amount.

Might be able to get around it using a third party affiliate link, but they'll take their cut on it and not sure about the cookie settings so not as good as signing up with amazon directly.