HubPages Amazon and E-Bay Affiliate Capsule Rule Change Made Simple

HubPages Administration announced on March 11th, 2011 new rule changes for the online writers on HubPages. Members of the online writing site are going through each of the online articles (known as Hubs) to make the changes necessary to comply with the new policy guidelines.

The Amazon and E-Bay capsule rule changes seems to be the one that many seem to find more complicated to comprehend. In this Hub I will try to make it as simple as possible to help those who may be having a hard time understanding what the new affiliate capsule guideline really means.

Anytime rules are changed or added there is a quick rush of panic, anger, lashing-out and people becoming 'defensive' of their actions. Usually it is just a simple misunderstanding and let's see how simple I can make this new rule change for those who still have questions.

First, I am not a member of the Hub Team. I am a Hubber just like you. I have went through the rule changes over and over several times and discussed this in the Hubpage Forums with others to gain an understanding of the new Hub guidelines for the Amazon and E-Bay capsules. If I do miss any information needed here or added content needs to be shared, I welcome any contribution to this hub.

To begin with, be clam! Relax and we can work through this together. There will be illustrations to go with the information shared. When the illustrations are located to the right in a smaller frame, you can "Click" on the image to open in a full size frame to view more of the illustration.

The first thing we need to evaluate is what did the HubPage policy actually say was needed to bring your Hub into compliance. Simple way to say it is; “What do I have to do to not be flagged by HubPages because of my Amazon or E-Bay capsules?”

On the My Account page of every Hubber you will find these 2 rules that were changed:

• Hubs can no longer use an Amazon, eBay, Link, Comment, News, or RSS capsule as the first full width capsule in a hub
• Hubs must contain at least 50 words of original text for each Amazon or eBay product that is configured to be displayed

HubPages Blog- Things To Help Your Hubs

This rule change should be pretty simple to understand. The first "Full-Width" capsule cannot be one of these listed in the title.

You can however, use these at the top of your hub "IF" you have a Text Capsule on the left and one of these to right side of the Text Capsule.

Look at the illustration to the right to see an example of the "wrong way" to set your capsule and then the "correct way" to set your capsule at the beginning of your hub.

This rule change seems to be the one that has really upset or confused a lot of writers on Hubpages. This is mainly a misunderstanding I believe from communicating in the forums with other hubbers.

The 50 words per Amazon or E-Bay product are for the “word content/count of your hub.” In the illustrations we will look at the Amazon Capsule. The illustrations work the same for E-Bay capsules.

In the illustration to the right you see a Hub Layout with the Amazon Affiliate Ads that is a violation of the new HubPages rule. The word count required for this Hub verses the number of Amazon products is out of the guidelines.

There are 66 words in the “text” capsule. There are “9” products displayed in the 3 Amazon capsules. By the new HubPages guidelines, there would have to be 50 words for each Amazon product you can see here in this illustration.

You would multiply the the number of products displayed, 9, times the 50 words required per product and the total of words needed in the text would be 450 words.

There are two choices to be made in this example.

1. You can add more text to bring the word count to 450 or more. (recommend more)
2. You can delete 2 Amazon capsules altogether and change the one Amazon capsule to only display 1 product.

This hub example would not in inline with the HubPages rule and would be “unpublished.”

The example in the illustration to the right would be acceptable to the new HubPages Affiliate capsule rule. This example meets the required word count for the number of products displayed in an Affiliate capsule whether Amazon or E-Bay.

The word count in this illustration is 73 words in the text capsule. The Amazon capsule only has 1 product displayed. With the HubPages requirement of 50 words per product, the Hub author is within the guidelines of the new Amazon capsule rule.

***The 73 word count would not make the hub eligible to be published with just the 73 words alone, as it would be listed as substandard. Remember, we are only discussing the topic of the Amazon and E-Bay capsule requirements.***

To add additional products to the hub, more text could be added and once the word count is made (100 words), a second Amazon product could be displayed.

I would recommend that you would add more than just 100 words before adding the second product. Better to go over the required text than risk the hub being “flagged” and having to revise the hub after it is unpublished.

The HubPages rule applies to Amazon and E-Bay Affiliate capsules. To make clear, it does not mean 1 Amazon and 1 E-Bay capsule and 50 words.

If you have 1 Amazon capsule and 1 product, plus 1 E-Bay capsule and 1 E-Bay product, that would mean 100 words minimum required. 2 products would be displayed and that requires 100 words of text.

Now we will look at how to revise your hub and Affiliate capsules to bring them into the guidelines set by HubPages.

The first step to correcting your Amazon capsule is to go into Edit mode. Next you need to hit "edit button" on the Amazon capsule to view the settings you have saved for this capsule.

Set the minimum number of items to display and then hit the Preview Results bar to see the items to be displayed and if the number of items matches what you selected.

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In this illustration we are using the "Keyword" method of choosing items. See in the illustration to the right where 3 items are selected in the box for minimum items to display.

You will also see the preview of the items displayed. There is 3 in this example and it matches the selected number. For you hub to be in the Affiliate Capsule guideline you will need 50 words for each of the 3 products displayed.

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This next illustrations shows where Hub Authors get into a problem with word count and number of products displayed.

Only 2 items actually show up, so 2 x 50 = 100 words right? WRONG!

The minimum items to display box is checked for 6 items. The word count is 6 x 50 = 300 words, even if only 2 show up.

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To protect your hub from being non-compliant with the new HubPages rule, select the minimum items in display box to match the number of items that you have displayed. In this instance it is 2 items displayed instead of the 6 items initially selected.

Using the Keyword method of item selection can vary with the number of items available at Amazon's choice.

The rules that apply to the Amazon capsule also apply to the E-Bay affiliate capsule. You must have 50 words per E-Bay product selected to display in the capsule.

In this illustration you can see that the minimum items to display are 6. The actual items displayed at this time is 3. You will still count this as 6 products times 50 words for each potential item that could be displayed. The word count minimum for the capsule would be 300 words. (6 x 50 = 300)

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Selecting to use the specific URL, ISBN or ASIN for the E-Bay product you want to display is the best choice for the E-Bay capsule. When the item has sold you will want to change the product.

Adding your own personal description is an option that you can utilize for both E-Bay and Amazon products.

Hopefully this Hub has helped a writer on HubPages to better understand the new rules for the Amazon and E-Bay affiliate capsules. It really is not that hard to follow these new guidelines, but can be time consuming for those who have a larger number of hubs already published.

Read the HubPages Blogs and get involved in some of the Forum discussions on this topic also and you can gain some suggestions on how to improve your Hubs with these affiliate capsules.

Feel free to ask questions and discuss this in the comment section here as well. I will answer as soon as I can or at least will point you in the right direction to get you started.