Amazon.com Introduces Context Link Program

Amazon.com today announces its own Context Link program. The program is still in the beta stage and what it does is to find the phrase in your posts and match it with certain Amazon products. Though Amazon allows user to customize the appearance of their context link ads, you have to be careful not to make the ads look identical as Google AdSense ads if you are also running AdSense on your site. Google allows competitive context ads to be served on the same page, but the condition is they don’t have the same appearance as AdSense ads:

In order to prevent user confusion, we do not permit Google ads or search boxes to be published on websites that also contain other ads or services formatted to use the same layout and colors as the Google ads or search boxes on that site. Although you may sell ads directly on your site, it is your responsibility to ensure these ads cannot be confused with Google ads.

The good news is that the ad link appears in the post and a preview window will appear if you also have Amazon.com Product Preview enabled. So the ad will show up in a different format from Google AdSense ads. With this program, it is convenient to bloggers who want to promote Amazon.com products because now you don’t have to build individual link for each product.

The following are some description about the program from the email I received from Amazon.com and don’t forget to check out their FAQ page for more details about this program:

Who Should Use Context Links?

Context Links are for people looking for an easy way to generate money from the content they write. Bloggers, review sites, and people that have archived pages that are currently not monetized are excellent candidates for Context Link.

Why Should I Use Context Links?

Earn Additional Referral Fees - By identifying and linking relevant phrases in your content, Context Links will unlock new advertising inventory, thereby providing the opportunity to earn incremental referral fees.

Convenience – Embed a piece of code on your page one time and automatically monetize both current and future content. This saves you the time from having to manually create Text Links.

Delight Your Site Visitors – Context Links provide your site visitors links to relevant products on Amazon.com, and the interactive preview functionality allows them to view these products in the context of your website without having to leave it.
Why Launch With a Beta?

We want your feedback. We have just completed a closed Beta, and we are proud of the results. An open Beta will allow us to gather more feedback that will be instrumental as we continue to improve Context Links.

How Do Context Links Work?

After you embed one simple piece of code on your pages, Context Links will identify and link contextually relevant phrases within your content to Amazon.com products. If you enable the preview functionality your site visitors will see a preview of an Amazon.com product relevant to the phrase we selected. Clicking on the link will send your site visitors to the product detail page on Amazon.com, and you will earn referral fees just as you would with any link you hand-picked.

Setting up Context Links for your website is quick and easy. Simply:

1. Visit Associates Central->Build Links->Context Links
2. Specify the maximum number of links you’d like on each page
3. Optionally customize the display of the links with a couple clicks
4. Copy/paste the generated code into your pages

Can I Customize the Links?

Yes, we have provided numerous customization options for Context Links allowing you to control:

• the number of links on each page
• which portion of the page will be linked
• which Amazon product categories are linked
• the matching of exact product names only
• if preview windows will appear when your site visitors hover over the links, and the style of those windows
• the options of single underline, dashed underline, and double underline link formats to indicate to your site visitors that they are Context Links

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