SiteStripe

SiteStripe appears as a horizontal bar at the top of every amazon.com (and amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, amazon.fr, amazon.it, amazon.es, amazon.nl, amazon.com.au, amazon.co.jp) page when you are logged into the Associates account. It automatically appends your affiliate tag, the correct locale suffix, and any tracking ID variant you select from the dropdown. It is the standard way US and EU Amazon affiliates create links.

The three link formats. Text gives you a short URL (amzn.to/3xyz) or the full long URL. Image embeds a small product thumbnail link. Text+image combines both. The short amzn.to URL works fine but obscures the underlying product, which matters for transparency and for managed URLs that need to wrap a stable destination. Many serious affiliates copy the full URL for that reason.

The tracking-ID dropdown. Before you create a link, SiteStripe offers a dropdown of all tracking IDs you have configured in your Associates account (yourname-20, yourname-yt-20, yourname-blog-20, etc.). Pick the right one before clicking the link-format button; the tracking ID is baked into the generated URL and cannot be changed after the fact without regenerating. This is the only sub-ID-equivalent built into Amazon Associates; use it deliberately.

Locale binding. SiteStripe only works on the Amazon locale matching your active Associates account. A US Associates account sees SiteStripe on amazon.com; a German Associates account sees it on amazon.de. To create links for amazon.de you need a German Associates account (separate sign-up, separate approval) and you need to be browsing amazon.de while logged in. The Amazon OneLink tool partially papers over this for traffic routing (sending a US visitor on a .de link to .com), but you still need each locale's Associates account for SiteStripe link creation.

SiteStripe versus manual URL construction. You can build an Amazon affiliate URL by hand: take the product URL, strip extra parameters, append ?tag=yourname-20. The result is identical to what SiteStripe generates. Manual construction is faster once you know what you are doing and is the only option for batch link creation or scripted workflows.

SiteStripe versus OneLink. OneLink is a separate Amazon Associates tool that redirects visitors to their local Amazon storefront based on geolocation. A amazon.com link clicked by a German visitor would route to amazon.de if you have OneLink configured. It does not replace SiteStripe; you still use SiteStripe to create the initial link, OneLink just handles cross-locale routing after the click.

Mobile SiteStripe was removed. Amazon discontinued mobile-browser SiteStripe access some years ago. SiteStripe is now desktop-only. The mobile workaround is the Amazon Associates app (which has a "create link" flow) or building URLs manually from the product page URL.

Common mistakes. Browsing logged into your personal Amazon account instead of your Associates account, which hides the SiteStripe bar entirely. Selecting the default tracking ID when you meant to use a content-type-specific one. Copying the shortened amzn.to URL when you wanted the full one. Generating links on the wrong locale (you must be on amazon.de to make amazon.de links; switching the URL after the fact will not give you the correct ASIN).