Amazon Hacks

Add an Amazon Search Box to Your Site

Send your visitors to Amazon by letting them search for things they’re already interested in.

Often the first thing people do when they visit Amazon.com is type a word or two into their search form and try to find a specific book or subject. You can speed up this process as a convenience to your visitors by placing an Amazon search box directly on your site. It also makes a good starting point for sending visitors to Amazon so you can collect referral fees from any purchases they make.

The Code

The simplest way to add an Amazon search box to your site is to create an HTML form that links to Amazon. The search results will show up on Amazon’s site, and your associate account will be credited if any sales follow.

The form uses the same method as linking to keyword search results [Hack #59]; the difference is that the form lets your visitors determine their own keywords to search for.

<FORM action="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search"[RETURN]
   method="get">
<INPUT type="hidden" name="mode" value="blended">
<INPUT type="hidden" name="tag" value="insert associate tag">
Search Amazon:<br>
<INPUT type="text" name="keyword" size="10" value="">
<INPUT TYPE="submit" VALUE="Go">
</FORM>

If you also want to let your visitors determine the product category to search, you can replace the hidden mode field with a visible drop-down menu (<select> input type).

<FORM method="get" action="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-[RETURN] search"> <INPUT ...