Amazon announced starting May 1st, they will no longer pay affiliates for sales sent to them via paid search. That means any leads through search ads on Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, Microsoft adCenter and other search ad programs. The announcement read:

Why did they make this decision? Amazon said, “decision is based on our review of how we invest our advertising resources.” In other words, they did not like competing on the paid search side with SEMs who were sending the same traffic to their site.

A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion over this announcement, where affiliates try to understand why Amazon would change their policy on this matter. Most people think it is about not wanting to compete on keyword bids with all their affiliates. Some feel it is a good way to rid themselves of affiliates, to reduce the management fees of regulating these affiliates. Others feel it is a branding issue, where Amazon could not fully control how ads looked like that were pointing to their site.

Do note, that Google has been wanting to rid themselves of affiliates in some ways. In the past, Google released a new affiliate policy that required (in some cases):

Maybe, this is another way for Amazon to mess with Google, if you remember history. 🙂

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.