Amazon Contextual Links for Associates Blogs and Websites

Amazon [[AMZN]] has just announced beta release of contextual PPA links. Dubbed ‘Context Links‘, the new feature will automatically identify and link relevant phrases within page content to Amazon products. Setup is via the Associates admin panel, Associates Central->Build Links->Context Links.

After you embed one simple JavaScript in your pages (usually placed in the WordPress footer template), Context Links will identify and link contextually relevant phrases within your content to the correct landing page at Amazon.com. If you enable the preview functionality blog/website visitors will see a preview of a product relevant to the phrase that was selected. Clicking on the link will send site visitors to the product detail page on Amazon.com allowing Associates to earn referral fees just as with any link created manually.

OK, here’s the good part. The ‘Context Links‘ JavaScript can co-reside with the Amazon Preview JavaScript that you might already have in place. The new JavaScript does not interfere with any links that have been set-up manually. Also, you choose how the link will appear – no decoration, underlined, double underline, or dashed underline. As with the Omasake ads, you can select which categories will be used to create Context Links. A checkbox allows you to choose more specific targeting based on product names. Also, you can specifically include or exclude portions of your content – see the FAQs accessible from the Context Links set-up page.

Tip: you should place the new Context Links JavaScript in your template so it loads last.

Amazon ‘Context Links’ only process web pages after they have been viewed a few times on your website (typically 2-3 times). Until then no phrases will be linked on the page. It can take up to 3-4 hours until the Context Links systems figure out phrases to link on the page. Be patient!

How about an example? Let’s say that I mention the TiVo DVR in one of my posts. Then, a link and preview will be automatically generated by ‘Context Links’. Nice!

Note: I have removed Amazon context links from this blog as I found that using both the preview links and context links slowed page load times. I am, however, using the context links on another blog.