Amazon Associates Program No Longer Allows Paid Search

Amazon made some sweeping changes to the Amazon Associates, affiliate program today.

Affiliates will no longer be paid referral fees on traffic to amazon.com, amazon.ca, and endless.com if that traffic comes via paid search marketing.

This change will go into effect on May 1st.

Another big change - Amazon will no longer make its data feeds available to affiliates in the U.S. or Canada via paid search.

This new change only applies to the Associates programs in North America.

To read more about it, you can view the official FAQ here.

So what do you think?  Has Amazon had enough of advertisers trying to get cheap clicks on their affiliate links just so that the 24-hour cookie can be stuffed?  Will this really stop anyone from using paid search, or will affiliates find a way around it?

Unfortunately, I think Amazon is fighting a losing battle.

UPDATE: The rest of the blogosphere is now aware of this.  Read more about it here, here, and here.

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