Wirecutter affiliate links on Amazon search pages

[Cash Builder]

I'm not sure how long this has been a thing, but I only noticed it today:

The Wirecutter is an "Amazon Verified Expert", and each one of those products has a special TWCxxxxx affiliate link. They are directly below the sponsored results on hundreds of Amazon search pages.

My interpretation of this is that when you direct a potential customer to Amazon, if that customer then searches for something else and clicks one of these products, your cookie will be overwritten with the Wirecutter's cookie.

Here's the results page that I posted above -

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_n_0?fst=as:off&rh=n:1055398,n:284507,n:289825,k:pressure+cooker&keywords=pressure+cooker&ie=UTF8&qid=1513797819&rnid=1063498

A couple more that I found -

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_n_0?fst=as:off&rh=n:172282,n:541966,n:1292110011,n:1292116011,k:ssd&keywords=ssd&ie=UTF8&qid=1513798921&rnid=493964

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_n_1?fst=as:off&rh=n:194613011,k:bike+lock&keywords=bike+lock&ie=UTF8&qid=1513799228&rnid=2941120011

Has anyone else noticed this?

 

[Future State]

I've noticed it and read some discussion that was nothing but people crying about it.

It blows and shows the cronyism and backdoor deals old money will get when it comes to new money dominance. I agree with your interpretation. Our cookies will likely be overwritten and Wirecutter will be given a lesser commission for the sale, but still be given one.

So the question is, what do we do about it?

The answer is to stop the garbage of putting a comparison table above the fold and just dropping the cookie. That might work depending on the cost of the product and how targeted the search traffic is, but what we really need to be doing is warming the visitor to the idea of the purchase.

Getting them to Amazon is not the goal. Getting them to the specific Amazon product page ready to click "Buy Now" without needing to go back to the search pages should be the goal.

Increase the quality of the traffic you hop over to Amazon by writing better content designed to educate and hype the buyer so they don't need to hit the search pages.