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Comment by carbonmachine | Hacker News Reader

I'm interested in getting started with Amazons affiliate program. Whenever I go to research things, I find many stories like this one. But I don't want to pursue this track. I have dev experience, don't want to pay for views, want to write in a narrow niche I enjoy, and I don't care about the lower commissions to boot. I'd be beyond thrilled if I made made more than a hundred bucks a month.

Where can I find information about this path, versus the substanceless course this person took? I haven't had a public website in a decade and just want to know how to do things decently well and not get into trouble.

View on HN

One tip for not getting into trouble is to not use SSL on the site you are sending traffic from (or use a referrer policy meta tag so that the browser is authorized to pass the referrer from your SSL page). SSL results in blank referrers by default. A friend had his Amazon account banned and earnings confiscated because his traffic had blank referrers.

How does this work WRT amazon referrals on reddit and such?

Most subreddits don't allow Amazon referral links.

But gamedeals allows certain whitelisted ones (charity) and AFAIK there has been no problem.

Good point, although I suspect Amazon is more lenient with known charity referrals.

Most major sites these days have a referrer policy tag in their HTML that allows at least the domain of the site to flow through. But I think they also ban accounts for posting direct Amazon affiliate links on places like Reddit anyway. Amazon is similar to Adsense in its propensity to ban and confiscate earnings without legitimate reason, and sometimes without explanation. Personally, I wouldn't waste time or money sending traffic to them. It's like building a house on quicksand. CPA networks are far more reliable if you want to be an affiliate marketer.

Could you give some examples of CPA networks (and for that matter what CPA stands for)? I have zero knowledge of this.

Cost Per Action. Google it, there are many. MaxBounty, CJ.com, linkshare, etc.

I just signed up for LetsEncrypt and didn't give referer a second thought. Thanks for the tip!

I am a long-term affiliate with amazon and when I switched to https I didn't experience any problems at all.

With other affiliate networks I absolutely did have problems though - because of the issue described above.

I assumed the difference was amazon's use of a referral tag at the end of every url?

This is not correct. SSL only blanks referrals to non-HTTPS links, the referrer is passed by default to all HTTPS links.

Since HN is using HTTPS, this should be very easy to test by just clicking on this link: https://www.whatismyreferer.com/

Note that HN includes this line of HTML which affects the sent Referrer header:

    <meta name="referrer" content="origin">

Interesting! Any idea why HN sets the referrer to origin?

The HackerNews repo is gone (and thus the issue), but at one point this was a Github issue I successfully filed to get HN to add it so their referral data for non-SSL pages wouldn't be lost:

https://github.com/HackerNews/HN/issues/68

(Background: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7197520)

IIRC, I think the developer was open to adding a referral, but not have it leak any on-site information, so this was a compromise.

On OSX/safari, if I click on the link, it correctly says the referrer is YC News.

if I right click the link (which I often do) and open in new tab or window, I see:

No referer / hidden

In these cases it does not alleviate the issue flagged above.

iOs/ chrome shows the correct referrer in both cases.

I'll have to ask my friend about this...he was using SSL and had no referrers and they killed his account. He had no referrer policy tag. I know he was using a tracking script that he redirected traffic through as well, perhaps that was Http.

If you don't care about the financial aspect then just do it. You don't need more information. Just write about the niche, link to high quality products, and build it.

There's a story about a fan talking to Jerry Seinfeld and saying basically, "I want to be a comedian, how can I do it?" having never done an open mic or told a public joke in any way. Seinfeld's response was that they were never going to make it, because if they had any chance of making it they'd already be doing the open mics, etc.

Just start the site. Write/review, and enjoy.

It's not about the financial aspect of it. Create the site and the content--that's the hard part. You can always monetize the site/content later on.

Affiliate programs come and go, same with ways to monetize a site. You can always change out the ads on the site, that's fairly easy.

It's getting the traffic and building a site that people like is the tough part of that equation.

the not get into trouble thing is easy, if you want to be an Amazon affiliate, just follow their terms of service to the letter of the law.

here is how you make money with amazon. find a niche you are passionate about, it helps if it is something with relevant amazon products. start blogging until you find you are getting inbound backlinks, comments, or other "social proof."

once that happens you can start writign guides, roundups, etc and placing product links. from there its all about getting links, and promoting yourself any way you can.

> just follow their terms of service

I've put in some time trying to parse the legal speak in their operating agreement, terms of service, etc. Most of it makes sense, but I fear I'm missing something. Though, maybe that's the point.

I had my amazon affiliate account disabled because someone posted my site on Reddit. That's the reason they gave me, and they pretty much confirmed "yup, it's that easy" in email correspondence when I asked "so anybody can shut down an affiliate account by posting the website to Reddit?"

Super bizarre. You'd think there's more to the story, but I have nothing more. Maybe my site was competing with my account manager's or something? I'll never know.

initiate arbitration.

With who? In what jurisdiction?

With Amazon. https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/help/operating/agreemen...

"To begin an arbitration proceeding, you must send a letter requesting arbitration and describing your claim to our registered agent, Corporation Service Company, 300 Deschutes Way SW, Suite 304, Tumwater, WA 98051. The arbitration will be conducted by the American Arbitration Association (“AAA”) under its rules, including the AAA’s Supplementary Procedures for Consumer-Related Disputes. The AAA’s rules are available at www.adr.org or by calling 1-800-778-7879. Payment of all filing, administration and arbitrator fees will be governed by the AAA’s rules. We will reimburse those fees for claims totaling less than $10,000 unless the arbitrator determines the claims are frivolous. Likewise, we will not seek attorneys’ fees and costs in arbitration unless the arbitrator determines the claims are frivolous. You may choose to have the arbitration conducted by telephone, based on written submissions, or in person in the county where you live or at another mutually agreed location."

https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/help/operating/agreemen...

To begin an arbitration proceeding, you must send a letter requesting arbitration and describing your claim to our registered agent, Corporation Service Company, 300 Deschutes Way SW, Suite 304, Tumwater, WA 98051. The arbitration will be conducted by the American Arbitration Association (“AAA”) under its rules, including the AAA’s Supplementary Procedures for Consumer-Related Disputes. The AAA’s rules are available at www.adr.org or by calling 1-800-778-7879. Payment of all filing, administration and arbitrator fees will be governed by the AAA’s rules. We will reimburse those fees for claims totaling less than $10,000 unless the arbitrator determines the claims are frivolous. Likewise, we will not seek attorneys’ fees and costs in arbitration unless the arbitrator determines the claims are frivolous. You may choose to have the arbitration conducted by telephone, based on written submissions, or in person in the county where you live or at another mutually agreed location.

Haha, it's hilarious that it's in Tumwater. That's a small town next to where I grew up.

Is your goal to make money or to write about your passion the way you want to write about it?

The ultimate job feels like a hobby

I agree up to a point but don't think that lines up well with this affiliate business model. Producing what you are passionate about, sure, following an ever changing SEO landscape and constantly tweaking in search of conversions, much less likely to overlap with the hobby as job passion model.

I'd like a good balance of the two, I suppose. If I could earn a few coins while learning and writing about things I enjoy, I'd consider it a successful venture. I'm thinking about Amazon specifically because I'm an avid user/addict.

FYI, I did what you want to do. On my personal website I write about my hobby projects that often include Amazon products. (I pretty much do all my shopping on Amazon, so anything I used in my projects is usually from them).

I simply link to the products using my affiliate link and thats it. I also make it very clear that it is an affiliate link.

When I first write a post I usually make $200 - $500 a month (even more if its around Christmas time)

Hey there! I don't make very much on affiliate links but I've kind of done what you want to do on my personal website. I'm a big reader so I post links to what I read and have made a specialized reading list for physics. The affiliate money is just enough each month to cover the hosting cost for the site and to buy 2-4 new books each month, so it sustains my reading (and writing) habit!

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