- Lack of content which is original to your site and beneficial to your visitors
- Pages that are mainly empty when advertisement content is removed
Now does any of that really matter, if the service is moving books? No. But there's no appeal process, and no one to discuss this with.
So I'm not glad it happened, but I'm glad it happened early. I've always been hesitant about affiliate programs because of the lack of control (e.g., I didn't launch with it; only integrated it after many users said they wanted it so I could devote more time to it), and now that my concerns have been verified, I know I need to be more creative.
Honestly there could be a better way by reaching out to other companies that work with you and form some sort of partnership agreement. Then you could give amazon "the finger" simultaneously...if you so desire.
There are other book vendors who've reached out to offer their affiliate programs, but I'm not sure any of them are worth it.
From the short time I was on Amazon, the lion's share of my affiliate revenue came from items other than books that were purchased using cookies that my app had set.
Without those non-book items, I would've made very, very little money (e.g., ~$5 instead of ~$300).
Books don't cost very much, but Persian rugs do! And there aren't many other booksellers out there who also sell Persian rugs...
One idea could be to partner with publishers and maybe 10% of the time a user opens a new tab, the book placement is sponsored. Charge based on impressions, click-throughs, or by some other arrangement.
For users, it keeps the tool free and ideally—if the sponsored placements are good—introduces them to cool new books.
