All I want is a text link….please!
OK so I haven’t used the Amazon Associates program for a good few months. But with Christmas round the corner I decided to log on and grab some links. First thing I noticed is that the interface had changed, “nice” I though, “now where be those text links?” So I’m given the choice of…”Product Links”, “Recommended Product Links”, “Banner Links”, “Search Box Links” and finally “Text Links!” Great I think, this should be nice and easy. How wrong I was!
It’s worth bearing in mind at this stage that I didn’t want anything complicated, just a nice single text link that goes to the Amazon.co.uk homepage. Really basic and simple, or so I thought.
So I’m in the “Build Text Links” section and I have the following choices: “Links to Favourite Destination” - which is pre-populated with things like Books > Romance and stuff like that. Next I can link to “Search Results”, which again is useful but not what I’m after. Next is “Build links to any page at Amazon.co.uk except for search-result pages”. Hmmm, not really what I’m after either.
Seeing as there are no more options I then decide to look at the banners available and see if any are just nice generic Amazon banners that go to the homepage. I could then just use the href= part of the code from that. OK so after a bit of searching I find a section entitled “Banner links for homepage”. Good stuff. But when looking in further I find banners for every single category (books, software, music etc) but NONE for the homepage. And if that wasn’t bad enough all these banners are IFrames and I couldn’t take the code from them to make a text link even if they did point to the homepage!!
So after spending half an hour trying to find a bloody simple text link I had to resort to using the “Build links to any page at Amazon.co.uk except for search-result pages” text link and directing it to the Amazon homepage. Can you believe that? I ended up having a simple text link that is long enough to pass for a short story!
Now come on, that’s just wrong isn’t it??????? Do you ever get the feeling that someone is trying to be just too clever for their own good? There is no doubt that the Amazon backend linking system is very good and can do lots of clever stuff. However it’s just a shame that they seem to have forgotten the basics.
What makes it worse is that they aren’t the only ones. Ever tried getting a text link from TradeDoubler or DGM? Good luck. Both networks offer text links but you need to use funky old javascript which only displays the text that they want you to display as a text link. All I want is a simple, basic, old-fashioned text link that starts http://www. that I can then attach to any word or phrase on my site. Really, it’s not that hard.
On the other hand, props to Buy.at and Affiliate Window who get these very simple things right. Especially Buy.at who give you your unique affiliate basic text link on every single merchant detail page. This is how it should be done.
OK can’t believe I’ve rambled on about text links for this long, lol!
What I’m listening to right now: Outkast - “So Fresh, So Clean”
Tuesday, October 4th, 2005 at 11:32 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Welcome to my blog. My name is Kieron Donoghue and I run UK Offer Media Ltd. I thought it would be fun to post a daily (well hopefully daily) blog, writing about my experiences in Internet Marketing and more specifically Affiliate Marketing. I'll include some personal stuff too, probably about my other passions, music and cars. Please feel free to post your comments and thoughts too.
October 5th, 2005 at 9:47 am
I’ve always used
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/redirect-home?tag=MYSITEID&site=amazon
as a basic text link for Amazon - but you are right about it being difficult to find one now!
October 5th, 2005 at 10:39 pm
Keiron if you go to the ‘Link Matrix’ on Tradedoubler (should be on the RHS) it’s easy to pick up text links.
October 7th, 2005 at 12:44 am
On Paid On Results all you do is Login click on Link Overview and you have every single merchant you need a link for in 1 page, and you don’t need to click Merchants name to get the links they are all ready for you, it is the easiest system to pick up text links from
Wait until you try the new Affiliate Control Panel, it’s the best yet 
October 7th, 2005 at 1:19 am
Sorry I omitted Paid On Results from my blog mate. You do indeed make it very simple for affiliates to pick up text links. Note to self - must make more use of POR