Amazon affiliate links worked for 3 wks & were disabled; won't reset

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   Danielle Woernerposted 14 years ago

   This isn't an Amazon problem--my links work on other sites.  I've written to HubPages, with not even an acknowledgement yet.
   
   I have several Amazon affiliate links on my Hub: one that was embedded in the running copy & eight photo-boxes of products. No inappropriate content.   All worked & showed my Amazon associate ID, and I was getting Amazon traffic for about 3 weeks after posting.  Then a sale I was informed of didn't post on my Amazon stats.  When I checked all the links from my hub, they no longer had my affiliate number in them, they were just standard links to the product on Amazon.
   
   I've now gone into the HubPages edit function on 2 separate occasions and redone the Amazon links.  I preview them & they pop up just fine, including with the latest price changes AND my affiliate ID. Then I save the changes, and the URL's in the HubPage boxes on the editing page all change to a single number, which is the generic Amazon ID for the product.  And when I go to my edited/saved Hub, each link on the page is again the generic Amazon page for the product.
   
   IDK if HubPages is messed up, or a hacker has gotten my Amazon ID, but I'm getting traffic & making commissions on Amazon from my other link sources.
   
   Anyone else have this problem? Have you solved it?  Do you routinely disguise your affiliate ID with a new URL?

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      tritrainposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      That's frustrating.  Is part of the Amazon Associate ID there, but it is messed up OR is it totally gone.  I've noticed a couple personally that didn't look right.
      
      I've noticed a disproportionately big drop, relative to traffic, in my Amazon sales from HubPages.
      
      I'll take a look too.

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         Danielle Woernerposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Hi Tritrain, thanks.
         The affiliate code is completely gone, and the rest of the characters in the link look different too -- of course, all those URL's are so long it's hard to tell for sure, but it seems as if the one that saves is a completely different character set than the link that had the affiliate code in it.
         
         I'll look forward to hearing more of what you figure out for your traffic drop. Good luck!

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      IzzyMposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Are you remembering that HP's own affiliate code is on the page 40% of the time?

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         Danielle Woernerposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Hi Izzy,
         Thanks for this new info, and hmmm, could you clarify?  How/where is HP's affiliate code placed on the hub -- does it actually replace the codes on all the products we posted? Is that part of HP's basic terms that I overlooked?
            
         That's important new info for me about HP and I'd really appreciate it if you have time to clarify.   
         
         But in this case, I think the problem's more fundamental, and a glitch.  I had pretty good Amazon traffic for 3 weeks, for having posted just one hub.  (Though one sale I know about never registered on Amazon during that active period -- so maybe HP got that click & commission?)  Then my Amazon traffic went to zero.  I had no other  links up on the web at the time, just on that hub.  Amazon confirmed that those links were no longer affiliate links.  And now, the affil links won't save at all on HP -- they each get turned into one single long set of digits, like a product number.
         
         All the best!
         
         Got any thoughts?  I do hope they get back to me.

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            IzzyMposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            You know how you put your affiliate code for both Amazon and Adsense into your settings under My Account? As opposed to physically putting it on the page?
            Well if you use amazon or ebay, using the affiliate capsules provided by HP then like adsense and HPads, everything is rotated for revenue sharing 60/40. We, the authors, get 60%. But its not 60% of everything - its on 60% of the time, we get 100%, and 40% of the time, HP gets 100%.
            I think the only way to tell whose affiliate code is on at any given time is to right click the page and look at the source code.
            When your Amazon clicks went to zero, did your traffic also fall off the cliff? Panda roll-out happened on the 11th April and that affected a lot of our traffic.
            If you have continued to receive traffic and no Amazon clicks, have you checked that your Amazon code is still associated under My Account ~>Earnings ~> Affiliate settings.
            
            If nothing here helps, I suggest you email team@hubpages.com for further assistance.

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