Amazon closed my Associates account on the 180-day rule. Here is exactly how that clock works and what I would do differently
Most people find out about this rule the way I did, from the closure email. Posting the mechanics because they are not obvious and the order you do things in decides whether it hits you.
The rule: once your Associates application is accepted, you have 180 days to refer three qualifying sales. Fail that and the account is closed. Qualifying means an order placed by someone who is not you, actually shipped, and not returned. Your own purchases never count, and orders that ship after the window do not save you.
The trap is not the rule, it is the sequencing. Applying feels like admin, so almost everyone does it on day one, before there is a site, before there is traffic. Then the clock runs for six months against an empty page. Mine closed with the site half built. You can reapply, but you start over with new tracking IDs, so every link already placed goes dead and any content you published points at nothing.
What I would do differently, in order:
Apply last, not first. Build pages, get whatever traffic you can, then apply so the clock starts when people are already clicking. Nothing about applying early helps you.
Aim the first pages at people who have already decided. Comparisons, this model versus that model, is X worth it, specific model pages. Broad informational content brings readers who were never going to buy, and readers do not clear the three sale bar.
Pick a category you actually buy in. The three sales usually come from people who trust one specific detail you got right, and that detail is either something you know or something you are guessing at.
Check the tag survives the trip. A dashboard reading zero clicks is often not zero clicks, it is a tag that got stripped by an app redirect or a shortener, or a US tag on a non-US storefront. Open your own live link on a phone and read the final URL before assuming nobody is interested.
Two things I got wrong beyond the clock. First, the cookie is 24 hours, not 30 days like most programs, so save-for-later traffic converts far worse than it looks like it should. Second, these pages rot: prices move, items go out of stock, models get replaced, and a stale page burns the one visit you fought for.
Disclosure since it is relevant: I now run a paid service that builds and maintains this kind of site for other people, so I am not neutral. Not linking it, that is not what this post is for.
Curious how common this actually is here: did your first Associates account survive its first 180 days, and did you apply before or after you had traffic?