How to not get banned from the Amazon Associates program
Here are the key things not to do if you want to keep your Amazon Associates account in good standing:
You must disclose that you will receive a commission if someone buys something through your affiliate link. This is something we already addressed when we created your site, where put a disclosure in the footer. This is the bare minimum you can do to not get banned, but remember, TRUST IS KING IN THE WORLD OF AFFILIATE MARKETING!!!!!!!!!! It actually benefits you to disclose to your audence next to every affiliate link that it is indeed an affiliate link, so consider adding a short disclosure next to every affiliate link on your site. It can just be as simple as adding the words "Affiliate link".
If you mention the price of a product on your site, it must be updated regularly. As we know, the price of many products on Amazon changes regularly, so to make sure your audience is not misled about the price of an affiliate product you're promoting you must have a way to make sure that it's automatically updated when it changes on Amazon. If you can't, then don't mention the price at all in your content.
From downtown, it's another shameless plug alert: You don't have to worry about the products prices of products imported onto your site via our own Agora app, as it will automatically update the prices of your affiliate products.
What if subscription pricing is available on my chosen product? Which price should I mention? It's best to still mention the price for a one-off purchase as most first-time purchasers of a product wouldn't want to take up a subscription unless they know they're going to get ongoing value from purchasing it on a regular basis.
Using the one-off purchase price also helps you to build trust with your audience as you're effectively highlighting the "worst case scenario" by displaying the more expensive one-off price upfront. If they decide later to subscribe because they indeed receive ongoing value from purchasing it again and again, the discount they'd receive for doing so will be a welcome added bonus to them.
Agora uses the one-off price when you enable Auto Product Update on your product.
Do not use a URL shortener, or in any way cloak your affiliate link. You cannot in any way disguise your affiliate link as anything other than an affiliate link from Amazon. If you are worried about how long your URL is for any reason, the Amazon Associates dashboard has its own URL shortener you can use.
Do not use affiliate links in emails, eBooks or free downloads. You must only publish your affiliate links to the sites that you told Amazon you would publish them on. Emails, eBooks or free downloads are not your site that you've just created, so don't add them directly. One important thing to note though is that you are instead allowed to link to content on your site in emails, eBooks or free downloads (which will have affiliate links on them of course), so you can still earn commissions from your audience through these means.
Do not purchase anything via your own affiliate link. This may go without saying, but Amazon gets pretty cross if you're making your own Amazon purchases using your own affiliate link. The same goes for if you directly share your affiliate link with friends and family.
Do not create multiple Amazon Associates accounts per region. There's really no reason to have more that one account per region, so it's just simply not worth the hassle. To clarify, you are allowed to have Amazon Associates accounts in multiple regions, but to play it safe make sure you sign up for them using the same Amazon account you used to sign up for your first Amazon Associates account.
Don't pretend to be Amazon. This one may also go without saying, but don't in any way pretend to be Amazon. They will really not like that.