MobileRead Guideline Refinements

[Fbone]

Is there (or can there be) an Amazon affiliate link out in the open for us to use?

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

There really isn't a way to simply add it as an alternative domain?

http://amzn.com/B000QTEA3I
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000QTEA3I/ref=cm_sw_su_dp

You need to at least once programmatically "follow" the link-shortened URL in order to discover its destination, as it doesn't necessarily contain any revealing information it its url (such as the ASIN, as you suggested). It's not too difficult, I just haven't had the time to write a caching system yet that would follow the URL and cache the unshortened version for quick future lookups.

Originally Posted by Fbone

Is there (or can there be) an Amazon affiliate link out in the open for us to use?

There isn't yet. It could be easily added, though I am not sure where exactly. In the top blue nav bar perhaps?

[Billi]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

It could be easily added, though I am not sure where exactly. In the top blue nav bar perhaps?

Yes, very good idea. And if there isn't enough space for it, perhaps under "Community" or "Useful Links".

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

There isn't yet. It could be easily added, though I am not sure where exactly. In the top blue nav bar perhaps?

An Amazon search link below the MR one in the upper right corner is a possibility. It might be too "in your face" though.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

You need to at least once programmatically "follow" the link-shortened URL in order to discover its destination, as it doesn't necessarily contain any revealing information it its url (such as the ASIN, as you suggested). It's not too difficult, I just haven't had the time to write a caching system yet that would follow the URL and cache the unshortened version for quick future lookups.

I figured no harm no foul. An extra affiliate link when going to something like http://amzn.com/manageyourkindle will, at worst, persist onto linked product pages.

But I can hear that as manager of a website you don't want to clutter up extra pages.

What does the current code do to distinguish product pages? I think the asin links are semantically recognizable the same (more or less) way, and unless you check for dead links in the current code (???) that shouldn't be a problem.

I wouldn't like to think that MobileRead has to ping Amazon if it doesn't have to, and I think it could be done without.

There isn't yet. It could be easily added, though I am not sure where exactly. In the top blue nav bar perhaps?

"Find ebooks on Amazon" searchbox under the MR one.
Although to be fair maybe we should have other retailers as well.

[koland]

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

Just added a link to an Amazon ebook to a post and the automatic addition of the MR tag as the source for a click through works just fine.

Out of curiosity, how is MR staying below the 20K free ebook limit? because if they aren't, all this does (at least in the deals forums) is guarantee that no revenue gets issued by Amazon (since they zero out all income for any month that an affiliate goes over the 20K limit, unless they can push paid books to at least 20% of their total sales).

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by koland

Out of curiosity, how is MR staying below the 20K free ebook limit? because if they aren't, all this does (at least in the deals forums) is guarantee that no revenue gets issued by Amazon (since they zero out all income for any month that an affiliate goes over the 20K limit, unless they can push paid books to at least 20% of their total sales).

Hi koland, thanks for the pointer. Last time I checked we're far away from 20K free ebooks limit. But that without the deals forum, so yes, that needs to be looked at again.

[koland]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

Hi koland, thanks for the pointer. Last time I checked we're far away from 20K free ebooks limit. But that without the deals forum, so yes, that needs to be looked at again.

Just wondered, as I was seeing the auto links in the deals forum, including on free books yesterday. 20K seems a high number, but it isn't when you break it out by day - I would not doubt that frequent readers in the deals forum hit several thousand free books a day coming from MR.

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by koland

Just wondered, as I was seeing the auto links in the deals forum, including on free books yesterday. 20K seems a high number, but it isn't when you break it out by day - I would not doubt that frequent readers in the deals forum hit several thousand free books a day coming from MR.

You're right, although it could be offset if the total ratio free:non-free remains below 80%. Currently testing the results that's why it's being turned on and off.

[Brazen_NL]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

Hey LovesMacs, it's done automatically. It also works with .ca, .uk, and .de.

Since I'm new to the whole eBook world, I'm not sure how long this site has been alive, nor do I know if it accepts those tags. Amazon is active in The Netherlands now for eBooks: www.amazon.nl.

E: I think it's a great idea. I used to run a couple of sites and it's expensive. I'm not even talking about the time involved. Thanks for that!