Amazon.com to stop paying associates for paid search traffic

Amazon.com will no longer pay associates for sending traffic to its sites through pay-per-click search ads. The change, which follows Amazon's announcement that it is closing several distribution centers across the country, is another sign that the company is ramping up cost-cutting efforts.

Here's an excerpt from today's post on the Amazon Associates blog:

After careful review of how we are investing our advertising resources, we have made the decision to no longer pay referral fees to Associates who send users to www.amazon.com, www.amazon.ca, or www.endless.com through keyword bidding and other paid search on Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other search engines, and their extended search networks.

The post goes on:

As of May 1, 2009, Associates will not be paid referral fees for paid search traffic. Also, in connection with this change, as of May 1, 2009, Amazon will no longer make data feeds available to Associates for the purpose of sending users to the Amazon websites in the US or Canada via paid search.

The policy change will presumably help Amazon prevent associates from eating into its own search engine efforts. But it could also hurt some big associates. Amazon's announcement is lighting up various discussion boards, with one person venting, "This is not good. But what else we can do about it ... NOTHING!"

The change only applies in North America, Amazon said.

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