If you are an Amazon Affiliate user, you must have surely used the Amazon SiteStripe to insert Amazon product images on your affiliate website. Well, not any more. Because Amazon Affiliate SiteStripe images is no longer available. Amazon just put an end to the SiteStripe features “Image” and “Text+Image”. This was announced in an email to Amazon Affiliate users (see below). In this post, we will discuss about the Amazon SiteStripe features and possible alternatives to Amazon Affiliate.
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Amazon SiteStripe images not working anymore!
Amazon SiteStripe features “Image” and “Text+Image” is going away! The email from Amazon Affiliate reads-
“On December 1, 2023, two of the SiteStripe features “Image” and “Text+Image” will no longer be available. Links created on your site using Image and Text+Image will stop working December 31, 2023. Please remove them from your content as soon as possible if you have not already done so to avoid broken images on your site. Please note that standard text links from SiteStripe will continue to be available and work appropriately.”
In our opinion, Amazon just killed the two most popular SiteStripe features. Now you only have the text (link) option on Amazon SiteStripe.
The consequence?
To be honest, even with Amazon SiteStripe, adding product images to your affiliate website was manual work – you have to go to each product page, manually select the desired options (text link / image / text+image) , copy code and insert it on your website. This was painstaking already, still, it was easy to get the required image and links.
Now, the consequence is that if you have used Amazon SiteStripe to add Amazon product images on your affiliate website, then the images no longer shows, so now you have broken images on your site like the screenshot shown below. All the amount of time you have invested in building an affiliate website by inserting links and images from Amazon to improve the visuals of your content have been rendered not only useless, but your site now looks messed up due to broken images.
It is a mess! And you need to clean up as soon as possible.
The problem is that you have to manually go to each page where you have inserted the Amazon Affiliate images and remove them. This would take time depending on the size of your website and how many you have inserted. You may tackle this by removing the broken images from your most popular pages first and work your way down.
What Amazon wants you to use instead?
You can continue to use the Amazon SiteStripe to obtain text links. Links which you have inserted earlier in your website using the SiteStripe text (link) feature will continue to work. So no need to remove the links.
Now for images and other parameters, Amazon wants you to use the Amazon Product Advertising API (PA API). It provide more advanced features and capabilities, no doubt, for creating product links and widgets. But, for most users, we just need the link, and some images for inserting in our website, and for that, Amazon SiteStripe was good enough. For such users, using the API may be an overkill and definitely not as simple as the SiteStripe.
While you can get product details and product images by directly using the Amazon Product Advertising API, it is not so user friendly. We will cover the steps how to sign up for Amazon Product Advertising API and how to use it in another article as it is outside the scope of this post.
Amazon SiteStripe Alternatives – what can you use to insert Amazon images in your affiliate website
First things first, you need to remove the broken images from your website as soon as possible. You can keep the product links generated from SiteStripe as those will still work.
Next, you need to research and find the best possible solutions to insert Amazon affiliate links and images to your website. If you are running a WordPress website then there are plugins out there for managing Amazon Affiliate or any affiliates. Now that Amazon SiteStripe images is not working and bloggers are facing issues, there will be more such products available, but most of them will be at a price. Anyway, if it is important to you, then you can explore these options and opt which ever meets your requirements.
Here are some options for you to explore for inserting affiliate links on your website.
Lasso:Lasso is a popular all-in-one affiliate marketing tool that integrates with Amazon to help you monetise your blog.
Pricing: 39$Per Month, Billed Annually at $289 for 1 website | Check out all Lasso plans here.
AAWP (Amazon Affiliate WordPress Plugin): AAWP is a plugin that allows you to create product links, widgets, and banners directly from your WordPress website. It is great for Amazon affiliates looking for a one-stop plugin with various templates, a tracking feature, and integrations.
Pricing: 49$ per year per 1 site / 199$ onetime for 1 site | Check out all AAWP plan here.
AzonPress is another Amazon Affiliate management plugin which you can check out for your WordPress website.
Pricing: 3.25$ per month for 1 site | Check out all their plans here.
ThirstyAffiliates is an affiliate plugin that offers minimal visual customization. Despite the limitation, it provides robust tracking capabilities and simple link management. It is best suitable for affiliate marketers needing detailed link performance and revenue reports.
Pricing: 249$ per year for 1 site | Check out all their plans here.
Hostinger Amazon Affiliate plugin: If your website is on Hostinger, you get free Hostinger Amazon Affiliate plugin free with Hostinger Business web hosting and any of the Cloud hosting plans. The Hostinger Amazon Affiliate plugin makes it easy to show Amazon products or affiliate links in your WordPress posts. It connects with Amazon’s API to automatically import and update product prices and descriptions, keeping your site information accurate without extra work.
Join Hostinger for your website requirements today. Click on this link for discount.
As stated above, you can continue to use the Amazon SiteStripe for generating text (links) which you can insert in your posts. You can also obtain product details and images by manually using the Amazon Product Advertising API.
While you can insert Amazon affiliate links manually, a WordPress Affiliate plugin helps you to insert links and images easily, track your affiliate content performance. They also simplify management and maintenance since plugins with API will automatically update your affiliate product information when the product details are updated on Amazon.
So, in conclusion, there are many Affiliate marketers affected by the removal of the image feature from the Amazon SiteStripe. Now, affiliate website owner are left with no choice but to manually insert Amazon product details or to hunt for suitable plugins, which will cost them extra money. Anyway, if the plugins serves your purpose, and are under your budget, it is better to use these plugins to ease your work in maintaining the affiliate links on your website.
If you are affected by the Amazon Affiliate changes, let us know how you have mitigated this problem. We’ll be happy to known from your as well.
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