Freekrai's Free Amazon AWS Script

I've noticed that there are two versions of this script. Does anyone know what the advantages and disadvantages are of the two versions? It appears that the first version has caching, but the second version does not. Would that make the first version better when it comes to search engines visiting your site?

 

ASM1, the earlier version uses MySQL while ASM2, the latter version does not. Theres hardly any more development on ASM1. ASM2 seems to be the current choice of members.

 

Thanks Dino. I've used the latter version for several months (with moderate success) without even knowing there was an earlier sql version. Any thoughts on why one is preferred over the other? I would have thought the sql backend would provide more food for the search engines.

 

My thought then was a breakaway from the MySQL hassle which I was never keen on doing. The Search Engine thing is another one which I am not well versed in, sorry.

Pop the question over at affiliate-developer.com/forum/, you might get a clearer vision there.

 

I believe the older version uses an outdated version of Amazon's AWS, which is limited and cannot access some browse nodes. The newest version of the FreeKrai script is dated Dec 10, 2005. That one contains quite a few bug fixes and improvements. The script still needs quite a bit of rework to differentiate a site from other Amazon stores, so be prepared to dig into the PHP code and templates.

I think the use of the database was more of an attempt to store the data for better performance because the Amazon delivery of real-time data can sometimes get pretty bad, especially around Christmas. Also, Amazon has a TOS rule about no more than one request per second, which is always violated if a site gets a lot of traffic. Although the policy is still in the TOS, it is not enforced by Amazon.

As far as the search engines are concerned, they see the same Amazon data whether it is delivered direct using Amazon's current ECS or stored in a database and delivered, so there should be no difference as far as the spiders are concerned.

The biggest problem with all Amazon stores, as Nintendo and others will tell you, is that is it very difficult to differentiate the Amazon info that is already on thousands of other sites. Amazon affiliate stores rarely rank well in the search engines. If they do rank well, it is usually only temporarily. Some of my older Amazon sites still have over 150,000 pages indexed in Google, and all but the home page are stuck in Supplemental Results. Once Google tags a site as an affiliate marketing site, it's hard to break out of Supplemental Results.

Hi dinodino. Glad to see that you found this forum.

 

Glad to find you here too - always enjoys you clear and explicit posts.

 

tech, what exactly does it mean to be in Supplemental Results and how can you tell if your site is stuck in this state?

 

I am interested in adding an Amazon Store to my forum, is this a risk? Will Google label the entire site as an affiliate?

 

I'd like to know as well, how can we tell if our site is in supplemental results and is adding a shop a risk to the entire site or just that particular page?

 

Supplemental Results are in a different Google database. Once a page has been trashed into Supplemental Results, it hardly ever gets indexed again and almost never shows up in search results. Google has been hitting affiliate marketing sites hard for both duplicate content and (I believe) affiliate links. Most Amazon affiliate sites escape this for several months, but many eventually get caught up in it.

Supplemental Results appear to be applied on a page-by-page basis. My main site has an Amazon bookstore in a subdirectory that thus far has not been labeled as Supplemental Results. The secret to escaping this may be to have lots of original content in the site and also have an Amazon store in a subdirectory.

Some affiliate sites appear to completely escape Supplemental Results hell. Like everything with Google, the only thing that is consistent is their inconsistency.

To see if you have pages in Supplemental Results, just use the site:mydomain.com query command in a Google search box. Pages that are stuck in Supplemental Results will say "Supplemental Results" next to the URL in the listing.

It does appear that the current update is addressing this issue. Some people are reporting that pages are returning to normal listings. Others are seeing the Supplemental results pages completely dropping out of Google. Google may be in the process of correcting a problem because a lot of sites have been sent to Supplemental Results in the last 6 months.

None of this should stop you from running an Amazon affilite site if that's something you want to do. Just try to differentiate the site as best as you can. It's rarely wise to depend 100% on free search engine listings if you run an e-commerce site. You need to find alternative ways to drive traffic to a site.

 

Thank you TechEvanglist,

That was really a very clear and consise explanation. As I am really new, that's exactly what I wanted. I'm in the process right now of paying someone to make me a Amazon affiliate site based on AOM. I believe there's going to be a front page and then a link to the store. Does it matter so much with Google with the supplemental problem if one uses AOM instead? (Associate-o-Matic)

Thank you,Carol

 

Probably not a problem as TechEvanglist mentioned. However I would caution to keep the Amazon store in the same product niche as your website. Biggest problem "I" have experienced is getting greedy (adding to many products or non relevant categories)!

Quite a bit has been written about building niche stores with Freekrai's script. However one point that has generally been overlooked! If the "accessories" & "related items" links are displayed? The search engines can index thousands of products that are not related to the content of your website.

It would seem that more products listed in Google's index would mean more sales? However I found the opposite to be true! My ASM2 sites with under 30,000 pages produced lots more sales than with 250,000 pages indexed!

 

I've got a "giftstore" type domain. So, I would think it would be able to handle a variety of items. Would that be a detriment since it's not a niche? Or is a gift store considered a niche?

 

best experience with this script is that it works best on already established domains

 

Good question! In my opinion a niche store needs to have original content & focus on a "specific" category of products related to that content.

 

I would definitely say that a 'gift store' is a niche, and if you could add some contents/activities/special items to it you could have something interesting to work on.

Go for it!

 

I've looked pretty hard for another free amazon aws script out there that even comes close to the quality of freekrai's script but have not found any. If anyone cares to try and prove me wrong, please post about it here.

 

Yes I would agree with ASM2 being the best free Amazon affliate script!
Or maybe I should say the best free "PHP" Amazon affliate script?

From ordering domain to going live with ASM2 can be under 15-20 minutes if dns propagates right away. Had it happen using GoDaddy!

It certainly would be interesting to know how many Amazon sales Roger could have made if he hadn't of shared it with us?

 

It was very generous of him to share it, but I'm not sure he would have more sales because most of the work goes into marketing the site, does it not? You really have to work to promote and bring in those visitors especially now that Google has cracked down on duplicate content sites in a big way.

 

In regards to duplicate Amazon content, I blogged about it lastnight, take a look at this article and tell me what you think

http://blog.awswebshop.com/2006/07/22/amazon-web-services-and-search-engine-optimization/

I've written about duplicate Amazon content in Google and how to optimize your AWS pages. TechEvangelist, I'd especially like it if you took a look.

Hope this post is helpful.


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