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Ebay EPN niche store rules for 2012

by nightstorm
13 replies
I would like to build to build a niche store for Ebay EPN (yet to apply and its the only affiliate source for my niche I can find at the moment). I understand that Ebay are looking for good quality sites, lots of good content and avoid thin sites.

My site will have lots of good content in the form of a blog, however, I would still like to have products in listing pages ordered in categories giving the the impression and feel of a store.

The problem I have is that I cant workout if this type of site layout will go against me. Are store layouts still okay? What are other EPN'ers doing in 2012? Many thanks.
#2012 #ebay #niche #rules #store
  • Profile picture of the author markowe
    Originally Posted by nightstorm View Post

    I would like to build to build a niche store for Ebay EPN (yet to apply and its the only affiliate source for my niche I can find at the moment). I understand that Ebay are looking for good quality sites, lots of good content and avoid thin sites.

    My site will have lots of good content in the form of a blog, however, I would still like to have products in listing pages ordered in categories giving the the impression and feel of a store.

    The problem I have is that I cant workout if this type of site layout will go against me. Are store layouts still okay? What are other EPN'ers doing in 2012? Many thanks.
    This is really a question for the SEO forum, so you should get this moved.

    But, hmm, I can't give you any firm advice, but my general experience over the last 3 years or so has been that Google hates pages with a lot of eBay listings on -or any affiliate links really. Just think, if you have a store on a page which lists, say, 20 items from eBay. Each has an image link, a title link and maybe a "Buy now" button link - that's maybe SIXTY links all going to eBay. Oh, and the images are hotlinked to eBay too! All the sites I tried to build along those lines got consigned to Google oblivion a LONG time ago (we are talking WAY before any Pandas, Penguins or anything else).

    So for promoting eBay, I have really followed a "less-is-more" approach, and the development of my own plugin has gone in that direction - I now usually write a really good blog post and just add two to four eBay listings blocks within the post somewhere, in one or two places, and perhaps in a widget position too. And even then I might have overdone it - a site I built like that got hit by Penguin, though it may not have had anything to do with that of course.

    So less is more with eBay listings, definitely. It's just way too easy and too tempting to just fill your pages with products from eBay and add 3 lines of text. But unless you have alternative sources of traffic to Google I would seriously avoid that approach.
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    Who says you can't earn money as an eBay affiliate any more? My stats say otherwise

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    • Profile picture of the author nightstorm
      Many thanks for the reply. This isn't directly a question about SEO its more about EPN in general. However, as you bring up a valid point regarding SEO I should point out that these pages are for the benefit of the user, I don't really care if these pages are indexed, or not, as the blog will bring in the traffic. However, if these pages in question affect the whole sites ranking then yes this is a valid problem.
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  • Profile picture of the author markowe
    Ah, sorry, I misunderstood. I see what you mean - you are concerned it will go against you in terms of your EPN application.

    Hmm, I am not too sure about that - I don't necessarily think it would, provided you can clearly outline your business model, i.e. how you get traffic. Obviously they won't want to approve your application based on a site that's nothing but eBay listings simply because that doesn't convey the impression there is going to be much traffic to that site. On the other hand, if you say you are driving traffic to those pages from your blog then why not...

    Again, whether Google cares... Hmm, my feeling is not - having just a few pages of eBay listings, on an otherwise busy, authoritative blog, shouldn't matter either way. Don't take that as gospel though. Goodness only knows what's going on with Google right now...

    You could always get a Skimlinks account initially to test and see (that's what the article in my sig is about) - and if you get good results, well, you have a good argument to apply to EPN with
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    Who says you can't earn money as an eBay affiliate any more? My stats say otherwise

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    • Profile picture of the author ExRat
      Hi nightstorm,

      In my opinion -

      I should point out that these pages are for the benefit of the user, I don't really care if these pages are indexed, or not, as the blog will bring in the traffic. However, if these pages in question affect the whole sites ranking then yes this is a valid problem.
      ...it will probably still be a problem, regardless of the content only blog posts/pages - IF you want organic ranking/traffic from Google. Google really doesn't like the eBay affiliate program. They started disliking it a lot more (in their SERPs) a few years back when eBay were (apparently) spending a fortune on adwords - do you remember when you could search for anything ridiculous like 'spongey adhesive domesticated blue frogs' and there would only be one adwords ad reading - 'buy spongey adhesive domesticated blue frogs on ebay'?

      Well that was around the same time. And 2+2=4, right?

      You may find THIS recent EPN forum thread instructive.

      What are other EPN'ers doing in 2012?
      I'm particularly keen to discover a relatively easy fix for converting 'Build A Niche Store' scripts (BANS) over to the new RSS feed format from EPN.

      If anyone can help with this, please let me know.
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      Roger Davis
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      • Profile picture of the author nightstorm
        Originally Posted by ExRat View Post

        You may find THIS recent EPN forum thread instructive.
        The problem is because we cant see those sites we can't rule out other factors which may have come into play.
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    • Profile picture of the author nightstorm
      Originally Posted by markowe View Post

      Ah, sorry, I misunderstood. I see what you mean - you are concerned it will go against you in terms of your EPN application.
      Yes this is my area of concern

      Originally Posted by markowe View Post

      Again, whether Google cares... Hmm, my feeling is not - having just a few pages of eBay listings, on an otherwise busy, authoritative blog, shouldn't matter either way. Don't take that as gospel though. Goodness only knows what's going on with Google right now...
      That's what I am thinking. Thanks for your help I'll take your points into consideration.
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  • Profile picture of the author markowe
    Yeah, you really have to be careful not to go crazy with affiliate links in general, not just eBay - I believe the latest Google update may well have been targetting an excess of affiliate links, even though that is not something that has been talked about much in relation to Penguin.

    About BANS - I really have no idea of the status of that, the developers gave up on it, right? I would be very surprised to see any sites made with BANS still figuring the Google SERPS anywhere... Still, I am sure you have your reasons why you would want to keep using BANS

    As far as I know the BANS members forum still survives, and someone there did write a patch to get BANS working with the new eBay RSS feed. Can you get into that forum?
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    Who says you can't earn money as an eBay affiliate any more? My stats say otherwise

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    • Profile picture of the author ExRat
      Hi Markowe,

      Originally Posted by markowe View Post

      Still, I am sure you have your reasons why you would want to keep using BANS
      Yep.

      Originally Posted by markowe View Post

      As far as I know the BANS members forum still survives, and someone there did write a patch to get BANS working with the new eBay RSS feed. Can you get into that forum?
      No. I emailed them as per their site instructions with receipt details on March 9th, no reply - locked out. Sold down the river by the previous owners of the product, something I bear the scars for from many other internet purchases. I guess they call that 'experience.' :rolleyes:

      As mentioned, if anyone can help me out, it would be appreciated.

      Originally Posted by nightstorm View Post

      The problem is because we cant see those sites we can't rule out other factors which may have come into play.
      Try comment number 13 - see the author's name.
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      Roger Davis
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      • Profile picture of the author nightstorm
        ExRat

        Thanks. Certainly got some ideas how to get around this that need testing and a little development. However, I do see a lot of such sites which have fallen to bad off page SEO from panda and penguin. Of course, penguin is in its first version if anything like panda it could be refined. I think I'll build the content and wait awhile see what happens.
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      • Profile picture of the author Puahia
        I have installed the update (may 2012) from BANS and it has a program error and that gives a 500 Internal Server Error. I found out that if you fill in the "Site Wide Search Query" field in the admin area the error goes away.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tiffany Carter
    Is it possible to build a digital niche product that will do good on ebay? Just a thought
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    God,Family,Business. In that Order.
    .99 Cents Into A Million?

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    • Profile picture of the author nightstorm
      Originally Posted by Tiffany Carter View Post

      Is it possible to build a digital niche product that will do good on ebay? Just a thought
      That is a bit off topic i would start a new topic, however, my 2 cents is of course if you produce something that people wont.

      Or if that is a suggestion not really it needs to be a physical product we plan to eventually sell them our selves, however, we need an affiliate until we build stock and ebay offers the best selection in this particular niche and probably the only affiliate network.
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  • Profile picture of the author Roger Smith
    EXRAT
    You may be able to get some help from Tao a member of the Bans forum who has been making fixes for Bans. Here is a link where you can contact him New BANS eBAY RSS Fix He is also in the UK.
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