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Commerce links

What it is. Some results are pages at shops: a TV at a store, a hotel on a booking site. With Commerce links turned on, those results can carry a separate buy link next to the normal one. If someone buys through it, the shop pays a commission.

Your results stay the same. The normal link is always the plain page address. Buy links never change which results you get or their order. Turning Commerce links on or off changes nothing else in the answer.

It is off unless you turn it on. Turn it on for a key in your account, then ask for it with commerce=1. Calls without a key never get buy links.

You share in what it earns. When a buy link from your key's answer leads to a sale, you get a share of the commission once the shop's network confirms it: 50% (proposed). It is credited against your Search API bill each month.

Say it is a paid link. Each buy link comes with the words "Paid link: Hottub may earn a commission." Show them next to the link, every time.

Privacy. Buy links go straight to the shop's affiliate network, never through Hottub. Hottub does not track who clicks. The only tag on a link is a code that changes every day and names your key's day, never a person or what they searched.

Other people's links are left alone. If a page link already belongs to someone else's affiliate program, we leave it as it is and add nothing.

Terms

These terms apply when you turn Commerce links on for a Hottub Search API key.

  1. Show the disclosure. Whenever you show a person a buy_url, show the disclosure text ("Paid link: Hottub may earn a commission.") next to it, in the same place and at least as visibly. In HTML, mark the link rel="sponsored nofollow". Do not show a buy_url without it.
  2. Keep the link as it is. Do not change, shorten, cloak or re-wrap a buy_url, and do not add your own tracking to it. Do not put a buy_url in place of a result's url.
  3. A person chooses. Show buy links to people who can choose to follow them. Do not open, prefetch, preload or follow them automatically, and do not offer anyone a reward for clicking or buying.
  4. No paid search or email. Do not use buy links in paid ads, in bulk email, or on sites or apps the network or shop does not allow.
  5. Revenue share. Hottub credits your account a share of the commissions that networks lock for sales from your key's buy links (50%, proposed; the current share is on your statement). Pending sales are not credited; returned or cancelled sales are taken back from later credits. Shares are credited against your Search API bill unless we agree on another way to pay.
  6. We may stop. A merchant's programme can end or change at any time. We may turn Commerce links off for a key that breaks these terms, and shares from sales that broke them are not credited.
  7. Privacy. Hottub does not track the people who click. A buy link carries only the network's own tracking and an opaque code for your key and the day.

Terms version 2026-10-03. Search API · For agents