https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30137984
A week later I received an email from Amazon that they have now closed my Amazon Associates account. The reason given was: "Your website/app does not meet our content standards. The content of your website is insufficient. Here you can find an example: https://fahrrad-tools.de/"
Do you have an idea what they might be missing? Or could it be an automated website analyzer (AI) that expects a blog-like website?
Thanks for your ideas.
Quite a few spots mention "original" and "creative content" - because you have essentially just a database I'm betting they do not see it as original 'creative' content. It seems the goal of their program is to have bloggers write about the products being sold. Rather than simply decode the tire, they want you to upsell.
Maybe if you were to include individual/separate pages or 'blog' posts about each facet of the tires' specs, as painful as that is.
My least favorite aspect of the modern web is that all corporate websites have been invaded by "designers" who care about the "feel" of their "content". But they have forgotten that computers are tools. When I use a tool, I want clear, simple, predictable, obvious design, not colors and animations. Like an airplane cockpit or a woodshop, not a trendy coffee bistro.
Your site looks and feels like a tool. I think the organization could be a little better, but this is the kind of website I wish was present all over the entire internet.
Seems your case hasn't resulted from standard manual checks but some sort of automated sytem that was, maybe, triggered by a sudden spike in traffic?
If amazon affilliation is crucial to you then I would suggest moving your site to another domain, take on board the comments about adding blog-style content, and try again with another account?
In all honesty, all usual amazon complaints accepted, their affiliate program, in my experience, is actually run pretty fairly compared to many others. Certainly worth trying to get back on board.
It's safer and easier for them to just ban you rather than sending you an email a human has to read and evaluate your response.
It's a brave new world.
That author didn't clean out the links they had, just stopped putting new ones up; so amazon still "wins" a little free advertising.
If I'm reading you correctly, you were a bike enthusiast who made a helpful website for decoding tire SKUs. Does the affiliate program give you commissions on items that sell through your account webpage? Were you selling tires / an Amazon affiliate before?
It just seems like an odd thing to monetize, but I admire your entrepreneurial spirit!
I was wondering if they did or did not pay out your affiliate earnings before closing the the door.
Good luck in your endeavors. May I suggest also polishing your tool (its pretty good already. Maybe tailor it to specific use cases/back-end technologies) and offering it for sale/license it to various companies who would like to sell their tires?
I'm thinking any bike shop (if they exist, that is) could slap this on a tablet for a buck a month.
EDIT: On further thought I wonder if it might have something to do with the name of your site. A person might expect fahrrad-tools.com to be a site where they could buy tools, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Another obvious solution would be to find a different affiliate program (or set of affiliate programs) and point to them, since Amazon apparently doesn't want customers from you. Maybe some cycling-specific online store(s), or a price comparison web site? Probably more work and less profitable, but a potential avenue if you can't make progress with Amazon or don't want to deal with them.
When did HN became a support page for multi-billion companies? It's not that they can't afford to pay people to provide support. Or is this a sort of hidden agreement where if you make more than a billion, you can fire all of your support staff and hope the HN community fixes things for you for free.