Amazon provides extensive support for adding product links to associates' web pages, including: the Site Stripe toolbar for signed-in users, product images, and link wizards with copy and paste instructions. To someone who is familiar with the basics of HTML and the anatomy of a link, the instructions are understandable and easy to implement.
Nevertheless, there is a steady stream of questions from newbies about this most basic task on the Associates Discussion Boards. It's really not difficult unless the vocabulary of web building is unfamiliar to you. If that's the case, Amazon's instructions will have some mysterious holes that need filling. I hope this post provides some informational spackle for those holes.
First, turn on Site Stripe
To do this, sign-in to your Amazon associates account and click Links & Banners. Click the Site Stripe image, check all the options, then click "Turn On Site Stripe." You are the only one who sees this toolbar, and only if you are logged in to Amazon.com. The toolbar buttons you will use the most are "Link to this page" and "Discussion Boards."
Now, when you find a product page on Amazon that you want to link to, click the Link to this page button. It will automatically open the Customize and Get Link form on the Associates web site. Select Text Only (basic display) to make a text link. Click the Highlight HTML button, copy the code (CTRL-C) and paste it into notepad (CTRL-V) to keep it handy, or you can paste it directly into your web page's HTML or code view (not the WYSIWYG design view).
Important: Make sure you paste the code where you want your link to appear, within the opening and closing <body></body> tags. If you make a mistake, delete the new code, return to your HTML editor's design view, and click on the spot where you want the link. Return to code view and paste again.The link will work, but it's very long, and in addition to the link, contains a hidden image for tracking purposes. Here's an example (all one line, but wrapped to fit this post):
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596802447?
ie=UTF8&tag=greehaml-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&
creative=390957&creativeASIN=0596802447">CSS:
The Missing Manual</a><img
src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=greehaml-20
&l=as2&o=1&a=0596802447" alt=""
style="border: none !important; margin: 0px
!important;" border="0" width="1" height="1" />
The code displays this link on your web page: CSS: The Missing Manual
If you have a code-heavy web page, or just want the shortest possible link that works, read on.
Short product links that work
First, there is an alternative to the long link code created by the link wizard. The shortest possible link that includes your Amazon associates Tag ID is easy to construct and usually works perfectly. You always test every link you add to your website, right?
You could delete everything after your tagID in the link generated by the link wizard to start making a short working link (all one line, but wrapped to fit):
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596802447?Note that this fledgling link conveniently contains the ASIN (product ID) and your associate's tagID. Complete the link with an angle bracket (>), then add the Product title and the closing </a> tag (one line but wrapped to fit):
ie=UTF8&tag=greehaml-20"
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596802447?Ah, this version is more readable!
ie=UTF8&tag=greehaml-20">CSS: the Missing Manual</a>
To make the link as short as possible, you can replace gp/product/ with dp/, omit ie=UTF8&, and add a / forward slash before the question mark to get this (one line, wrapped to fit):
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0596802447/?That's as good as it gets.
tag=greehaml-20">CSS: the Missing Manual</a>
The most basic link format that works with your tagID, with information unique to each link is:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/ASIN/?tag=yourTagID
Some successful associates have commented that they consistently use the short form of these text links on their websites. They seem like happy folk and nothing has fallen out of the sky on them. I would conclude, though not out of long experience with Amazon, that it's a matter of personal preference.
If you decide to use short links often, a sainted person has made a bookmarklet that you can install in your browser. To use the bookmarklet, simply go to the amazon page you want to link to and click the bookmarklet to create the link code. Get the bookmarklet.
3 comments:
There is a new Amazon blogger tool that makes it easy to add product links to a post. See this post for more details.
Very interesting! I've been using:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0000000000/bookworm0c8-20/
where ASIN stays as is and I fill in the ISBN10 after it.
It seems to work but I think I'll try the shorter dp link, which I've also seen used in this bookmarklet:
http://www.phpied.com/short-amazon-affiliate-links-a-bookmarklet/
I don't know why Amazon tries to give us such complicated links, with that mysterious invisible image. People obviously don't like it.
I really like the bookmarklet for simple links. The format in your example was added to a lot of library catalogs a few years ago when libraries started adding book covers to catalog search results. The long links made by the "link builder wizard" include a tracking pixel for page impressions and other stuff that is probably used to provide information for Amazon's link-type reports. Since this stuff, particularly the tracking pixel, doesn't provide extremely useful info to Amazon associates, a log of them just whack it off and save some bandwidth.
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