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On this answer my link

"Keysonic Compact Wireless Keyboard" which points to

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Keysonic-Wireless-Keyboard-Integrated-Frequency/dp/B000L10Y5E

appears to be being dynamically replaced by a broken link that points to

http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B000L10Y5E

I have a suspicion that this is cause by my original link pointing to Amazon.co.uk rather than Amazon.com as entering a valid "B...." number from an Amazon.com page does work. For example:

http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B003687WV8

Granted I could try and limit my answers to Amazon.com links, but this is counter-intuitive for me as I always end up being supplied Amazon.co.uk links when searching via Google.

Is there anything that can be done to fix this?

14
  • Looks like we ended up opting for rewriting .com links only, so .co.uk and such end up being left alone.
    – Oded StaffMod
    Commented Aug 7, 2013 at 13:57
  • @Oded This appears to still be broken (or has since been re-broken) as the link on my original answer is still being rewritten to a broken address. My answer was merged and the new link is superuser.com/a/320133/19943. It is getting rewritten to rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B000L10Y5E which goes to a broken amazon.com address, manually changing to amazon.co.uk gets the right page.
    – Mokubai Mod
    Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 18:01
  • Resaved the post after a single space edit (so it has a diff). That "rebaked" the post, including the amazon link, which is now OK.
    – Oded StaffMod
    Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 18:05
  • @Oded Thanks, I didn't realise it was that simple. I don't have a problem with the affiliate link, just that it was broken.
    – Mokubai Mod
    Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 18:14
  • We save an HTML copy of a post on save - so, if the rendered is borked for a bit and causes such issues, unless someone goes in and edits it... the original bad HTML will be served. This is really rare (old broken posts that were not edited).
    – Oded StaffMod
    Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 18:23
  • @Oded FYI a user on SU found out that the affiliate link doesn't get inserted when linking to https://www.amazon.com/ or http(s)://smile.amazon.com/. You guys may be interested in fixing that.
    – nhinkle Mod
    Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 18:24
  • Thanks for the heads up @nhinkle - will talk it over with the team
    – Oded StaffMod
    Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 18:26
  • 1
    @Oded would you guys also consider having all Amazon Affiliate links go to smile.amazon.com? The user can then choose a non-profit to receive 0.5% of their purchase, and the affiliate referral fees are the same as on the main site.
    – nhinkle Mod
    Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 18:27
  • @Oded Will it be fixed within 6-8 weeks? (Yes, I am using the figurative definition).
    – gparyani
    Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 18:58
  • @damryfbfnetsi - dunno if it will ever be. The number of people utilizing workarounds like those is minuscule, not worth our time.
    – Oded StaffMod
    Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 19:28
  • @Oded But isn't it better to take preemptive measures in case there are lots of people in the future making use of these workarounds?
    – gparyani
    Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 19:33
  • @damryfbfnetsi - not with the amount of money we are talking about.
    – Oded StaffMod
    Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 19:33
  • @Oded Okay...but if it became a problem, would it be easy or hard to implement?
    – gparyani
    Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 19:34
  • @damryfbfnetsi - shouldn't be difficult. IIRC the amazon link rewriting is done in a single spot, so not a huge task.
    – Oded StaffMod
    Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 19:38

2 Answers 2

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11

I work for Amazon.com.

The reason for this is that ASINs (the 'B...' number referred to by the OP) are not technically global - they are tied to a given marketplace (.com, .ca, .co.uk etc). Products can vary from region to region, and may not even be sold in a particular marketplace.

In this case I suspect that the aforementioned Keysonic keyboard is not sold in the US, so when being redirected to the US site, there is of course no product to display.

Note that books are less likely to have this issue because the ASIN in that case always matches the book's ISBN, which tends to be global. It's still not always the case though, particularly in China where you don't tend to get the same availability of foreign books. E.g.

You probably need to add the marketplace in somehow to the redirection link.

1
  • 3
    excellent, thanks for the info from someone in the know!
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Aug 17, 2011 at 11:14
4

Hmm, interesting.

This problem appears to be specific to products and not books. Consider:

and

but for a product, even an international one...

or

... not so much.

2
  • In case you missed it, there's a nice answer by Gareth. The identifiers used are mostly site specific.
    – Daniel Beck Mod
    Commented Jan 23, 2012 at 9:35
  • yes, I commented on his answer.. so I hoped that was.. obvious...
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Jan 23, 2012 at 10:07

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