Short Guide How I Build Amazon Sites These Days

by nik0 Banned
50 replies
  • SEO
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Thought I write down my approach as it's pretty simple and easy to copy.

Nowadays you'll easily get flagged as a thin affiliate site and the easiest way for Google to detect that is by just comparing the amount of affiliate links on pages vs non monetized pages so we keep it to a minimum.

Let's say my site has 3 categories:

- flat irons
- hair dryers
- hair straighteners

I then write let's say 6 reviews for each category.

Besides the 3 categories I also write 3 comparison pages where we compare those products that we reviewed and I make a list out of it.

On each "best" list I place an equal amount of affiliate links as products, so in case of 6 products there will also be 6 affiliate links on the page.

The product reviews itself don't contain affiliate links but link to the "best" page.

The category pages have two links for each product, one links to the best page and the other one links to the product review.


Either way the visitor will always end up on the best/comparison page and those pages tend to convert very well.

Click through rates to Amazon of 50% are no exception.


So in short:

- homepage -- links to --> comparison page + product reviews
- category page -- links to --> product review + comparison page
- product review -- links to --> comparison page
- comparison page -- links to --> Amazon

Make sure to optimize your comparison page for the keywords with the most exact searches/month as due to this structure we are funneling all the link juice to that page, either direct or in a pyramid shape.

As it's a comparison page it's automatically full of LSI keywords, as brands are LSI's, model numbers are LSI's, features are LSI's and so on and you cover that all on one page naturally.

I would also suggest to make the page 1500+ words long as studies showed that those perform best.

To optimize the link juice funneling you can make use of dynamic sidebar plugins that only show products from the category where the product is featured.

I even go as far that I put the contact/disclaimer and other types of informative pages in a dynamic widget as well that only shows on the homepage and not on any other pages.

What I also did is remove the hyper link from the image on the homepage, category page and product page to increase the chance even more that they click on the "compare" button right away, normally people love to click on images but that would take them to the product review itself or to an enlarged image popup and that's one step away from our goal so we almost force them to end up on the comparison page.

One last thing that I do is make sure that the comparison pages don't have a sidebar so that the visitor doesn't get distracted by that and thus his only choice is to click on an Amazon link. I like to fool my visitor a little bit by naming the link like: "Read more reviews here", and in fact they can read more reviews at Amazon so it's not really fooling them.

When the visitor ends up on a product page or at the category page I use colored buttons with text like "compare" as people love to compare things.

The theme I use is Amazillionaire but I made a few tweaks to it. Normally that theme shows 2 buttons for each product on the category page, one meant for buy now and to insert an affiliate link and one saying something like "read more". I adjusted the theme so that only one button shows with the text "compare" and I adjusted the theme files to make that button link dofollow as the theme author made it nofollow with the intention that people insert their affiliate link there but we don't do that for the simple reason that we don't want to get flagged as a thin affiliate site and we also don't want to spend money on additional "fluff" content meant to avoid Panda issue's so we catch two flies in one here.

In the end you have a site with (let's stick to the example) 3 categories and 6 products in each category so in other words in total:

- 18 product pages
- 3 category pages
- 3 comparison pages
- 1 homepage

Total: 25 pages of which only 3 contain affiliate links, which is kind of the best ratio you can get without screwing your conversion rates and no way that you'll get hit by Panda or flagged as a thin affiliate site this way.

Last tip:

I place those 3 comparison pages in the main/menu bar next to each other and put the categories in drop down format next to that so that when someone wants to navigate somewhere else we have the highest chance they end up on a different monetized "best" page.

Almost forgot to mention the link building, let's say I build 100 links:

- 42 links to the comparison pages (14 per page)
- 24 links to the category pages (8 per page)
- 16 links to the homepage
- 18 links spread out over the reviews (1 per page)

That way the product reviews should be able to rank for long tail traffic as they get juice directly, from the homepage and from the category page, and all that flows to the comparison page as well.

Make sure to diversify your anchor text widely, especially for the homepage and category pages, this gives you some space to go more aggressive with anchors on the comparison page level.

Focus on strong links that are able to pass juice, with web2.0's, profiles, article directory, wiki, bookmark, social media links you won't get anywhere. If you plan to build such links make sure that you have a strategy in mind to drive direct traffic. Just posting at a web2.0 / wiki / article directory or anything like that without a strategy behind it will hardly bring you any traffic, if at all.
#amazon #build #days #guide #short #sites
  • Profile picture of the author Ben Acharyaa
    Meh!!! that'd still be a thin affiliate site.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Google Adwords can filter out doorway pages, not sure why you think organic SERPs can't do the same.

      A review of an affiliate product is a doorway page. The word review is just another footprint combined with an affiliate link on your web page.

      I'm sure all your theme files are still named Amazillionaire (footprint).

      [source - link above]
      Bridge pages offer little functionality beyond driving traffic elsewhere. Travel aggregator or shopping comparison sites, for example, cannot simply drive traffic to a single online merchant.
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        The word review is just another footprint combined with an affiliate link on your web page.
        Good thing is then that the actual product review pages won't have affiliate links on them. Still a doorway page to the comparison page I suppose.

        Good idea about renaming theme files, especially if it gets sold massively Google might do something with it in the future.
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Ben Acharyaa View Post

      Meh!!! that'd still be a thin affiliate site.
      Yeah it is but you won't get automatically flagged and penalized as thin affiliate site when most of the posts don't contain affiliate links.
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  • Profile picture of the author dreamtoreality
    From the man himself: "These sites collect pay-per-click (PPC) revenue by sending visitors to the sites of affiliate programs, while providing little or no value-added content or service to the user. These sites usually have no original content and may be cookie-cutter sites or templates with no unique content."

    I sincerely doubt Nik0 is doing that, but I haven't seen his sites.

    My main money site definitely offers value (low bounce rate, high time on site, and even Consumer Search use my site as one of their sources, alongside Consumer Reports, Amazon, Walmart etc. so I'm in good company.)

    Traffic has been down this week, though, although things seem to be back to normal today. I think Google's filter seems to be too simplistic if they look at the number of pages with affiliate links vs pages without. I may be caught in this filter, as the traffic count is quite poor for a site with as many pages as I have.

    I do only send traffic to Amazon, but if they have the lowest price the vast majority of the time and also offer free shipping, then why not? Should you link to other merchants just to please Google? Seems a bit absurd.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by dreamtoreality View Post

      I do only send traffic to Amazon, but if they have the lowest price the vast majority of the time and also offer free shipping, then why not?
      Lowest price doesn't matter, lol.

      Maybe doorway pages are a bad idea because Google will eventually @*%$# slap the site into oblivion? If your mostly getting traffic from Google SERPs, well, looks like a good enough reason not mess with thin sites.

      Amazon affiliate links are an easy footprint. Even masking a link doesn't change anything.

      I'm sure they check bounce rate looking to see If traffic returns to the SERPs, you can pretty much bet they're dropping a cookie on search traffic & tracking them.
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      • Profile picture of the author dreamtoreality
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        Lowest price doesn't matter, lol.

        Maybe doorway pages are a bad idea because Google will eventually @*%$# slap the site into oblivion? If your mostly getting traffic from Google SERPs, well, looks like a good enough reason not mess with thin sites.

        Amazon affiliate links are an easy footprint. Even masking a link doesn't change anything.

        I'm sure they check bounce rate looking to see If traffic returns to the SERPs, you can pretty much bet they're dropping a cookie on search traffic & tracking them.
        It's not only the lowest price, though, is it? I know that the first place I always look to buy something from is Amazon. They are also trusted and have exceptional customer service, and I am being sincere when I say that.

        Look through some product reviews and you will see that consumers have had problems with the manufacturer, yet Amazon often replace the product free of charge, even before you have sent it back.

        There's a difference between a doorway page that provides value and one that does not. I'm sure Google is well aware of this.

        Google says, "Not every site that participates in an affiliate program is a thin affiliate. Good affiliates add value, for example by offering original product reviews, ratings, and product comparisons. If you participate in an affiliate program, there are a number of steps you can take to help your site stand out and to help improve your rankings."

        This, however, is what I feel is the most telling part: "Affiliate program content should form only a small part of the content of your site." This is actually one of the first bullet points in thier checklist.

        I fail to see the issue with doorway pages (if a doorway page is defined as providing links to one merchant) if you follow the above.

        Looking though the serps, I see two things that back the bolded text up. One is that websites that provide reviews in addition to many non-monetized pages are ranking highly. The other is that websites that only provide reviews, but do not promote affiliate links are also ranking highly.

        As I said, it seems absurd for Google to punish a site that meets the above criteria, just because a webmaster is promoting one affiliate. The company is more logical than that.
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        • Profile picture of the author nik0
          Banned
          It's not just Amazon, same applies to Clickbank or Commission Junction.

          Yes we aim to provide value in the shape of reviews or comparisons but did you really buy the products to review and compare them? I don't think so.

          I just hire a cheap writer to get unique content, not an expert in that niche or product range.

          If I was planning to buy something I wouldn't trust my own site or any other doorway site (it is what it is, no matter if it has comparison modules or not), instead I would visit Amazon directly and read the user reviews there.

          Don't fool yourself by thinking you provide great value with your review site dream. I'm here to make additional money with my affiliate efforts, nothing more nothing less. You will never see me defend my crappy Amazon sites unless I really start to focus on the authority concept and provide a lot more then just reviews.

          But crappy or not, my sites do survive the updates, it's not a temp solution that gets slapped by the next Google update and if they do I go back to the drawing board and come out stronger.

          This is how one of my Amazon sites looks btw, a bit different concept then explained in OP as I didn't have a best list article ready for it, but it gives you a bit of an idea of how or what: http://cooktopreviews.org/ , I won't keep this link live for long btw, just showing it now as I haven't build links yet.
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          • Profile picture of the author dreamtoreality
            Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

            It's not just Amazon, same applies to Clickbank or Commission Junction.

            Yes we aim to provide value in the shape of reviews or comparisons but did you really buy the products to review and compare them? I don't think so.

            I just hire a cheap writer to get unique content, not an expert in that niche or product range.

            If I was planning to buy something I wouldn't trust my own site or any other doorway site (it is what it is, no matter if it has comparison modules or not), instead I would visit Amazon directly and read the user reviews there.

            Don't fool yourself by thinking you provide great value with your review site dream. I'm here to make additional money with my affiliate efforts, nothing more nothing less. You will never see me defend my crappy Amazon sites unless I really start to focus on the authority concept and provide a lot more then just reviews.

            But crappy or not, my sites do survive the updates, it's not a temp solution that gets slapped by the next Google update and if they do I go back to the drawing board and come out stronger.
            Well there you go, nik0, you've said it yourself. You've openly admitted that you hire cheap writers who have no idea what they're on about. I actually know quite a bit about the niche I'm in.

            I suppose you've never heard of Consumer Reports or Top Ten Reviews? Buying each product is not a prerequisite for providing value. I will never give glowing reviews to products that don't warrant it - in fact, I don't give glowing reviews at all. I evaluate the products in an objective manner, and give users all the information they could possibly want to know in one place. We aren't all building churn and burn sites like yours, although I can see the profitability in doing so.

            Valuable or not?

            I'm leaning towards yes.

            Edit: I can see why you would never defend those sites. I just had a look at one of the Miele products, and it hardly even makes sense. The "Read Reviews" links, particularly on the category page and homepage, are also quite misleading and are the very definition of a doorway page.

            I'll admit that I wouldn't defend a couple of the first review sites I made, even though I think that they are substantially better than the link you provided. My main site, though, I will always defend for providing value. Which is probably why it makes the most money out of the lot.
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            • Profile picture of the author nik0
              Banned
              Originally Posted by dreamtoreality View Post

              Edit: I can see why you would never defend those sites. I just had a look at one of the Miele products, and it hardly even makes sense. The "Read Reviews" links, particularly on the category page and homepage, are also quite misleading and are the very definition of a doorway page.
              You claim that there are no reviews to read on Amazon? (EDIT: lol this product is not reviewed by anyone yet so valid point).

              Besides, most of my reviews, maybe not on this site, have a pro's and cons list so it's not like we're hiding anything and the review stars are looked up from Amazon. So it's not like we give more glory to the product then it deserves.
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              • Profile picture of the author yukon
                Banned
                Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

                Besides, most of my reviews, maybe not on this site, have a pro's and cons list so it's not like we're hiding anything and the review stars are looked up from Amazon. So it's not like we give more glory to the product then it deserves.
                Lol your only fooling yourself when you say stuff like that on this forum.
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            • Profile picture of the author nik0
              Banned
              Originally Posted by dreamtoreality View Post

              Well there you go, nik0, you've said it yourself. You've openly admitted that you hire cheap writers who have no idea what they're on about. I actually know quite a bit about the niche I'm in.

              I suppose you've never heard of Consumer Reports or Top Ten Reviews? Buying each product is not a prerequisite for providing value. I will never give glowing reviews to products that don't warrant it - in fact, I don't give glowing reviews at all. I evaluate the products in an objective manner, and give users all the information they could possibly want to know in one place. We aren't all building churn and burn sites like yours, although I can see the profitability in doing so.

              Valuable or not?
              In other words you just pull info which is already available on the net and combine it a bit.

              The value of consumer reports is that they have legit unique reviews from their own visitors. That's about it.

              Stop fooling your self.
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              • Profile picture of the author dreamtoreality
                Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

                In other words you just pull info which is already available on the net and combine it a bit.

                The value of consumer reports is that they have legit unique reviews from their own visitors. That's about it.

                Stop fooling your self.
                Just had a look at a few random consumer search reviews. Not seeing what you said. Why else do they have all those sources and keep on saying "reviewers" "owners" etc.?

                I'm not fooling anyone, nik0. We obviously don't see eye to eye on this. You say "In other words you just pull info which is already available on the net and combine it a bit." You make it sound so underwhelming. That analysis is too simplistic, when you haven't seen any of my sites.

                I build links myself, sure, but I know some of the backlinks I have received naturally, you would never get. I'm going off bounce rate, time on site and natural backlinks as my criteria for providing value.

                Again, not criticising what you are doing, as it is profitable, even if I would hit the back button as soon as I landed on one of your Amazon sites. It's clear we go about things in two very different ways.

                Now, your seo service, I could just as easily say stop fooling yourself with that, judging by your target market and previous posts about SEO. The thing is that I have a benchmark. What's yours?
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          • Profile picture of the author yukon
            Banned
            Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

            It's not just Amazon, same applies to Clickbank or Commission Junction.

            Yes we aim to provide value in the shape of reviews or comparisons but did you really buy the products to review and compare them? I don't think so.

            I just hire a cheap writer to get unique content, not an expert in that niche or product range.

            If I was planning to buy something I wouldn't trust my own site or any other doorway site (it is what it is, no matter if it has comparison modules or not), instead I would visit Amazon directly and read the user reviews there.

            Don't fool yourself by thinking you provide great value with your review site dream. I'm here to make additional money with my affiliate efforts, nothing more nothing less. You will never see me defend my crappy Amazon sites unless I really start to focus on the authority concept and provide a lot more then just reviews.

            But crappy or not, my sites do survive the updates, it's not a temp solution that gets slapped by the next Google update and if they do I go back to the drawing board and come out stronger.

            This is how one of my Amazon sites looks btw, a bit different concept then explained in OP as I didn't have a best list article ready for it, but it gives you a bit of an idea of how or what: googlehammer.com , I won't keep this link live for long btw, just showing it now as I haven't build links yet.
            I guess that's for me.

            I'm down to promoting one CB product, yes I bought the product. No I don't review the product, I simply say what's included. I also link directly to the SSL checkout page, not a default CB squeeze page.

            I'm in the middle of converting my main site into a shopping cart (WooCommerce) where I'll be selling my own product & phasing out affiliate stuff. Long term I'm also considering making a deal with two of my competition to allow them to sell their own products (same type of products I sell) where I'll get a percentage of their sale (all sales made on my site), they won't get any SEO links from me, just targeted traffic/sales. That would give them sales & give me data to help narrow down best selling products across 3 large domains.



            Don't fool yourself by thinking you provide great value with your review site dream.
            Lol, I wouldn't own a review site If you gave me one for free.

            I know my sites provide great value. A large percentage of links are built by my traffic. I get incoming search traffic searching for my domain names (not EMD nonsense). I get competition asking If they can advertise on my same niche sites. I'm a legit member on the largest same niche forum (as large of a forum as WF) where I had loads of traffic lined up before I ever built my first site years ago (traffic still flowing today). I get content request from traffic. I get emails thanking me for the content. I'm doing something right & it doesn't involve tricking traffic into believing a phony review. I'm not trying to brag, you brought it up.

            I get around 50% of my traffic from established sources besides the SERPs. I know what my traffic wants because I'm interested in the niche outside of the money. I worked in the niche offline for 9 years. When your a long term buyer yourself, you have a good idea what traffic wants.

            I get the feeling your fighting an uphill battle with those thin review sites. I can only imagine you have to have 100% new traffic every single day from the SERPs. I seriously doubt search traffic will visit an Amazon review site more than once because after they figure out it's all leading to Amazon they have no use for a review site. Amazon already has buyer reviews directly on their own site (per product).
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            • Profile picture of the author dreamtoreality
              Originally Posted by yukon View Post


              Lol, I wouldn't own a review site If you gave me one for free.
              From now on I'm going to say an objective analysis site that falls in line with Google's Webmaster Guidelines and happens to be monetized through Amazon affiliate links and also contains plenty of non-monetized content, every time someone mentions a review site. If upon further investigation the site purely contains a dozen few hundred word reviews, all of which suggest that the writer has failed to obtain a basic grasp of the English language, then the words "review" and "shit" shall be interchangeable.
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              • Profile picture of the author nik0
                Banned
                Originally Posted by dreamtoreality View Post

                From now on I'm going to say an objective analysis site that falls in line with Google's Webmaster Guidelines and happens to be monetized through Amazon affiliate links and also contains plenty of non-monetized content, every time someone mentions a review site. If upon further investigation the site purely contains a dozen few hundred word reviews, all of which suggest that the writer has failed to obtain a basic grasp of the English language, then the words "review" and "shit" shall be interchangeable.
                I might not improve the web, I do improve the world by providing those writers with work so in the end it's all good
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                • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
                  Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

                  I might not improve the web, I do improve the world by providing those writers with work so in the end it's all good
                  Judging by that site, those writers do not deserve work.

                  Are these the same writers you always use?
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                  • Profile picture of the author nik0
                    Banned
                    Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

                    Judging by that site, those writers do not deserve work.

                    Are these the same writers you always use?
                    Only for this batch of Amazon sites, found some real cheap ones.
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                    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
                      Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

                      Only for this batch of Amazon sites, found some real cheap ones.
                      Perfect example of why cheaper is almost never better. I don't care how you design the site. You can play around with layouts and site design all day long. The site won't make any money. There is no way someone is even clicking to another page, much less buying an $822 cooktop with a description like...

                      BOSCH is a company which has been doing its business for about fifteen years. It specializes in kitchen appliances. It product are made with the latest technology. The cutting age technology and modern innovations of cooktops are a hit the customers.
                      The rest of the description only gets worse.
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                      • Profile picture of the author Andrewsfm
                        Interesting discussion to read,

                        I've had an amazon site up a few years, 100 pages, about 20-30 of them pages have at least 1 amazon affiliate link on and they have survived each update.
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                      • Profile picture of the author nik0
                        Banned
                        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

                        Perfect example of why cheaper is almost never better. I don't care how you design the site. You can play around with layouts and site design all day long. The site won't make any money. There is no way someone is even clicking to another page, much less buying an $822 cooktop with a description like...
                        My last site promoting products in the range of $30-$150 made $600/month despite the poor content.
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                    • Profile picture of the author Ben Acharyaa
                      Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

                      Only for this batch of Amazon sites, found some real cheap ones.
                      How much did you pay for these articles? I don't write much because i know my english isnt that great but with a little bit of research and proof reading, I can write 10 times better than that lol
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                      • Profile picture of the author nik0
                        Banned
                        Originally Posted by Ben Acharyaa View Post

                        How much did you pay for these articles? I don't write much because i know my english isnt that great but with a little bit of research and proof reading, I can write 10 times better than that lol
                        I think I paid $3/500 words for that site.

                        Just answered your PM btw, always in need of decent writers.
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              • Profile picture of the author yukon
                Banned
                Originally Posted by dreamtoreality View Post

                From now on I'm going to say an objective analysis site that falls in line with Google's Webmaster Guidelines and happens to be monetized through Amazon affiliate links and also contains plenty of non-monetized content, every time someone mentions a review site. If upon further investigation the site purely contains a dozen few hundred word reviews, all of which suggest that the writer has failed to obtain a basic grasp of the English language, then the words "review" and "shit" shall be interchangeable.
                At least throw some newfangled typos in there, like reevu & szht.
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            • Profile picture of the author nik0
              Banned
              Originally Posted by yukon View Post

              I can only imagine you have to have 100% new traffic every single day from the SERPs.
              Thank God we have Google
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              • Profile picture of the author yukon
                Banned
                Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

                Thank God we have Google
                Thank him now, the clock is ticking...
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          • Profile picture of the author seonutshell
            Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

            It's not just Amazon, same applies to Clickbank or Commission Junction.

            Yes we aim to provide value in the shape of reviews or comparisons but did you really buy the products to review and compare them? I don't think so.

            I just hire a cheap writer to get unique content, not an expert in that niche or product range.

            If I was planning to buy something I wouldn't trust my own site or any other doorway site (it is what it is, no matter if it has comparison modules or not), instead I would visit Amazon directly and read the user reviews there.

            Don't fool yourself by thinking you provide great value with your review site dream. I'm here to make additional money with my affiliate efforts, nothing more nothing less. You will never see me defend my crappy Amazon sites unless I really start to focus on the authority concept and provide a lot more then just reviews.

            But crappy or not, my sites do survive the updates, it's not a temp solution that gets slapped by the next Google update and if they do I go back to the drawing board and come out stronger.

            This is how one of my Amazon sites looks btw, a bit different concept then explained in OP as I didn't have a best list article ready for it, but it gives you a bit of an idea of how or what: googlehammer.com , I won't keep this link live for long btw, just showing it now as I haven't build links yet.
            Bad site lol.
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  • Profile picture of the author ZedyDiamond
    Thanks for the guide OP, it will definitely help me
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  • Profile picture of the author AffiliatingAlan
    Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

    Focus on strong links that are able to pass juice, with web2.0's, profiles, article directory, wiki, bookmark, social media links you won't get anywhere..
    Elaborate on acquiring said "strong links".
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by Ben Acharyaa View Post

      How much did you pay for these articles? I don't write much because i know my english isnt that great but with a little bit of research and proof reading, I can write 10 times better than that lol
      Only 10 times better???
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by AffiliatingAlan View Post

      Elaborate on acquiring said "strong links".
      Setup your own private network of expired high PR domains or buy them somewhere.
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  • Profile picture of the author mbah owl
    Thanks for share, any Earning screenshoot for this method?.. :-)
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    • Profile picture of the author AffiliatingAlan
      Lol this guys site just has 3 categories with 6 posts on it. Each post has a clickable title and a button that say "read review". Title takes u to review, the "read review" button goes to amazon.

      So hes misleading and get High CTR but the rest of the site sucks. Someone will probably just go to another site and overwrite his cookie.
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        Originally Posted by AffiliatingAlan View Post

        Lol this guys site just has 3 categories with 6 posts on it. Each post has a clickable title and a button that say "read review". Title takes u to review, the "read review" button goes to amazon.

        So hes misleading and get High CTR but the rest of the site sucks. Someone will probably just go to another site and overwrite his cookie.
        Most people just buy when they end up on Amazon.

        My Amazon conversion rate is about 8%, which is pretty standard compared to others. The conversion from my site to Amazon is 20-50%, which is about as good as it can get.

        It's only a little misleading, like I said, people can find reviews on the product page from Amazon.
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        • Profile picture of the author nik0
          Banned
          Not sure why people are even complaining about the content being used. You write your own so you're in full control of what you use.

          This post is written as a handy guide to build Amazon sites that convert very well and that don't get penalized by Google at the first Panda refresh.
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        • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
          Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

          The conversion from my site to Amazon is 20-50%, which is about as good as it can get.
          You might be on to something. Make a site so crappy that people immediately click on whatever is in front of them to get off the page.
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          • Profile picture of the author nik0
            Banned
            Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

            You might be on to something. Make a site so crappy that people immediately click on whatever is in front of them to get off the page.
            Old concept, remember those micro niche Adsense sites based on CTRTheme / Bluesense etc.
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            • Profile picture of the author AffiliatingAlan
              Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

              Old concept, remember those micro niche Adsense sites based on CTRTheme / Bluesense etc.
              Lol im making a site now with bluesense.

              Btw no hate towards your method, if it works it works, right.

              I am building all my niche sites with a static homepage, and all pages/child pages.

              Have you found more success via static or blog?

              TBH im relatively new so I dont understand how to rank a homepage as a blog. Besides alt tags and title tags. SO I just avoid it altogether.

              Are you hunting keywords ONLY for the hompage or are you trying to find homepage and low comp for the actual products landing page?

              I also need to learn about expired domains. But that seems like a whole other ball park
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              • Profile picture of the author nik0
                Banned
                Originally Posted by AffiliatingAlan View Post

                Lol im making a site now with bluesense.

                Btw no hate towards your method, if it works it works, right.

                I am building all my niche sites with a static homepage, and all pages/child pages.

                Have you found more success via static or blog?

                TBH im relatively new so I dont understand how to rank a homepage as a blog. Besides alt tags and title tags. SO I just avoid it altogether.

                Are you hunting keywords ONLY for the hompage or are you trying to find homepage and low comp for the actual products landing page?

                I also need to learn about expired domains. But that seems like a whole other ball park
                Mostly I use a static homepage, showing the top picks (function from the theme that is) and below that one or two paragraphs of intro text and a comparison chart.

                For the new sites that I plan to setup I will use the latest posts on the homepage. But those sites will be smaller, just 6-10 reviews and the homepage would then be the category, simply cause I like the category layout and I think it will convert well. However there will be some technical difficulties like adding additional content to the homepage.

                I think what's most important about static vs blog is whether you plan to build the site out and how many different topics you cover. I build sites with an x number of pages all focused on one specific niche and then I call it a day. If you build a site about hair dryers and razors and want to optimize the homepage for hair dryers then it won't work very well if you only have razors showing there, guess you get my point.

                I optimize the homepage or category page for keywords like "best hair dryer reviews" which covers "best hair dryer" as well as "hair dryer reviews", both phrases with good amounts of searches.

                The product pages are automatically optimized for keywords with less searches, "brand x hair dryer" always has decent volume so I don't have to think much about it. You can go one step further and type in the brand in Google's Keyword Planner to see if there are any models with decent search volume, and then cross check with Amazon to see if that product is still for sale, often you find outdated models in Google.
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                • Profile picture of the author AffiliatingAlan
                  Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

                  Mostly I use a static homepage, showing the top picks (function from the theme that is) and below that one or two paragraphs of intro text and a comparison chart.

                  For the new sites that I plan to setup I will use the latest posts on the homepage. But those sites will be smaller, just 6-10 reviews and the homepage would then be the category, simply cause I like the category layout and I think it will convert well. However there will be some technical difficulties like adding additional content to the homepage.

                  I think what's most important about static vs blog is whether you plan to build the site out and how many different topics you cover. I build sites with an x number of pages all focused on one specific niche and then I call it a day. If you build a site about hair dryers and razors and want to optimize the homepage for hair dryers then it won't work very well if you only have razors showing there, guess you get my point.

                  I optimize the homepage or category page for keywords like "best hair dryer reviews" which covers "best hair dryer" as well as "hair dryer reviews", both phrases with good amounts of searches.

                  The product pages are automatically optimized for keywords with less searches, "brand x hair dryer" always has decent volume so I don't have to think much about it. You can go one step further and type in the brand in Google's Keyword Planner to see if there are any models with decent search volume, and then cross check with Amazon to see if that product is still for sale, often you find outdated models in Google.
                  Your static method is exactly what I do now.

                  So for the blog homepage. Does google like to take bits from each post's title displayed on the homepage blog and use that to decide how to rank it?

                  Also I am assuming you are doing research for whatever keywords you want your homepage blog to rank for?

                  Also I assume your doing research for your landing pages?

                  "The product pages are automatically optimized for keywords with less searches, "brand x hair dryer" always has decent volume so I don't have to think much about it."

                  How do you know the products dont have 6000 other people reviewing it if you dont do keyword research?

                  Im interested in this method because its low risk, low investment, quick ROI.

                  My first site I ever made I did your type of blog method and my best page ranks on page 4. However I never did any backlinking and only made 15$.

                  I am assuming all your ranking success is behind your backlinking?
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                  • Profile picture of the author nik0
                    Banned
                    Originally Posted by AffiliatingAlan View Post

                    Your static method is exactly what I do now.

                    So for the blog homepage. Does google like to take bits from each post's title displayed on the homepage blog and use that to decide how to rank it?

                    Also I am assuming you are doing research for whatever keywords you want your homepage blog to rank for?

                    Also I assume your doing research for your landing pages?

                    "The product pages are automatically optimized for keywords with less searches, "brand x hair dryer" always has decent volume so I don't have to think much about it."

                    How do you know the products dont have 6000 other people reviewing it if you dont do keyword research?

                    Im interested in this method because its low risk, low investment, quick ROI.

                    My first site I ever made I did your type of blog method and my best page ranks on page 4. However I never did any backlinking and only made 15$.

                    I am assuming all your ranking success is behind your backlinking?
                    I'm not quite getting you, you talk that you use a static homepage but ask questions about blog format. There is no homepage blog as the homepage is static.

                    I don't do much keyword research, the only thing I check out is how many searches the main keyword has with "best" in front of it or "reviews" behind it. I aim at at least 5000 exact searches for "best product" keywords. Based on that I have a good idea how much traffic the site can drive (mostly in the range of 200-600 unique visitors /day) and on average I make about $100/month per 100 unique visitors/day.

                    The ranking success is due to the back linking indeed, without that the sites hardly drive any traffic, if at all.

                    Keep in mind I push about 30 high PR blog posts and 30 permanent homepage links to my sites (which is quite aggressive but allows me to target almost any niche,with the exception of digital goods like laptops / camera's etc.), so if you had to outsource that to someone like me it would cost about $600,-.

                    For me it's all about numbers and being able to scale up easily and the costs of the link building is of course considerably lower for me as I have the network in place. Most permanent links end up on PR3 dropped domains that I buy for $50/each, so the cost of such link is for me only about $4,50 ($3 for the permanent spot, $1 for content, $0,50 for placement by VA) so the whole link building campaign doesn't cost more then $200,- and the content for the site about $125,- The investment is always made back in the first 3 months, calculated from the day the first post is published. Some sites make $600/month, others get stuck at $100/mo but that's quite exceptional low.

                    Right now I'm busy with a new concept:

                    - category showing up on homepage in combination with static page
                    - noindexing the actual category itself
                    - max 10 product reviews, all linking back to the homepage
                    - homepage optimized for "best [product] reviews"
                    - having a VA do some kw research for post titles this time (solely based on volume, not competition)
                    - product reviews have no affiliate links but link back to homepage with the text COMPARE in button
                    - homepage has about 10 affiliate links

                    Not sure how I plan to rank these sites as I sourced a list of 100+ best keywords in tons of different niches so I can go either two ways:

                    - rank it the same way as my other sites (30 roll off posts / 30 perm posts), however then I would have to expand my network heavily as the homepage would end up full of course with all those sticky posts.

                    - go real churn & burn and setup a separate network of let's say 100 sites and submit spun content to them to keep the costs at an all time low and a life expectancy rate of the money sites of about 3-6 months.

                    Total costs would then be: $60 for content, $5 for kw research, $10 for domain = $75,- in total. Plus a few thousand dollars for domains (have quite a few PR1's PR2's still on the shelf so don't need too many). So total costs in case the network would get deindexed in the first batch (very unlikely though) would be $100 per site. I think I can easily make that back. In case it fails I would remove all the content from the private network sites and just use the domains like I always do (with unique content). It also allows me to find out quickly which niches are the most profitable and build new/better sites for those and if the small sites last I can use them as link juice passers.
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            • Profile picture of the author seonutshell
              Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

              Old concept, remember those micro niche Adsense sites based on CTRTheme / Bluesense etc.
              Got like 3 sites with bluesense. 2 of them make a lot of adsense money, and i have never been banned.
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        Originally Posted by AffiliatingAlan View Post

        Lol this guys site just has 3 categories with 6 posts on it. Each post has a clickable title and a button that say "read review". Title takes u to review, the "read review" button goes to amazon.
        Other sites of mine use a button saying "COMPARE" which takes them to a comparison page on my site and from there it links to Amazon. That converts very good as well.

        This new approach is meant to reduce the amount of pages as I always stick to about 6-9 products per category, so instead of making an additional best/compare page I just optimize the category itself for the "best/reviews" keywords.

        Just sourced a list of 150+ "best ....." keywords and plan to build 150 sites, based on 6 product reviews, a static homepage that will be optimized for it and the category page itself will probably be noindexed. That way only the homepage will be monetized, wonder how such sites will sail through the Google updates. Idea is to make them feeder / link juice passing sites for larger more authority styled sites. Will first test it with a batch of 10 sites to see how it works out, if it fails it will still make the money back and treat it as a churn & burn concept. In the case it turns out to be churn & burn I'll setup a network where I use spun content to keep the costs low.
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by mbah owl View Post

      Thanks for share, any Earning screenshoot for this method?.. :-)
      This site hasn't received any links yet.

      On average the sites make in the range of $50-$600/month based on about 24 pages in total:

      - 3 category pages
      - 18 product reviews
      - homepage
      - contact / disclaimer page

      Those money numbers are based on 60 high PR blog posts of which half of them will be permanent on the homepage as without link building it won't do much.
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  • Profile picture of the author Cray
    Quite helpful for starters like me! Thank you!
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    Dropshipping for a living.

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  • Profile picture of the author TheAdsenseGuy
    Hey Niko-

    What do you think about this amazon site plugin- Prosociate 7 Day Only Special Offer.

    You set up a wordpress site and use the Woocommerce ecommerce plugin. What the product does is take someone from your Woocommerce shopping cart straight to Amazon's shopping cart.

    So there isn't any amazon affiliate links all over your site. Do you think this wil stop a site from being penalized?
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    • Profile picture of the author GGpaul
      Originally Posted by TheAdsenseGuy View Post

      Hey Niko-

      What do you think about this amazon site plugin- Prosociate 7 Day Only Special Offer.

      You set up a wordpress site and use the Woocommerce ecommerce plugin. What the product does is take someone from your Woocommerce shopping cart straight to Amazon's shopping cart.

      So there isn't any amazon affiliate links all over your site. Do you think this wil stop a site from being penalized?
      I have this plugin. Built a BS site 3 months ago never changed the content and already made some sales. Never got penalized too.
      Signature

      RIP Dad Oct 14 1954 - Mar 14 2015.

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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by TheAdsenseGuy View Post

      Hey Niko-

      What do you think about this amazon site plugin- Prosociate 7 Day Only Special Offer.

      You set up a wordpress site and use the Woocommerce ecommerce plugin. What the product does is take someone from your Woocommerce shopping cart straight to Amazon's shopping cart.

      So there isn't any amazon affiliate links all over your site. Do you think this wil stop a site from being penalized?
      Worked out pretty well for me, based it on a expired PR3 domain and ranks fairly well for the titles, doesn't bring in huge traffic but a steady 15-20 unique visitors per day, haven't changed any of the content and makes about $25/month so definitely not bad for such little effort.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by TheAdsenseGuy View Post

      Hey Niko-

      What do you think about this amazon site plugin- Prosociate 7 Day Only Special Offer.

      You set up a wordpress site and use the Woocommerce ecommerce plugin. What the product does is take someone from your Woocommerce shopping cart straight to Amazon's shopping cart.

      So there isn't any amazon affiliate links all over your site. Do you think this wil stop a site from being penalized?
      That's a clever idea.
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        That's a clever idea.
        The only thing is that ecommerce sites convert worse then regular review sites.
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