Amazon Standard Identification Number

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The Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN) is a product identification number used by Amazon.com. Despite the name, it is not a "standard" in any real sense, and is valid only for referring to products within Amazon.

Each product sold on Amazon.com is given a unique ASIN. For books with an ISBN, the ASIN and the ISBN are the same. Books without an ISBN and other products are also assigned ASINs.

On Amazon's Web site, a product's Web address (URL) always contains its ASIN, and, given the ASIN, you can construct the product's URL in the following manner (as of January 2005):

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/ASIN-VALUE-HERE

So, the URL on Amazon for the paperback of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, 4th Edition, whose ISBN is 020530902X, is:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/020530902X/

A shorter form of the URL for most products is:

http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/ASIN-VALUE-HERE

So the URL for Elements of Style, 4th Edition would become:

http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/020530902X

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