Im looking to build an estore with products on Amazon. I like Associate o matic cos it looks like a proper store and you dont know you are buying from Amazon until you are just about to purchase it and it says 'checkout at amazon' at the last stage. My question is - is this script good? Helped with sales for a lot of people? What about SEO? Surely Google can see a duplicated script and doesnt like it? Or is there a way around this somehow? Now that 'checkout at amazon' button... Is there anyway at all to remove that and just have 'checkout' instead... I really dont want my customers knowing they are buying from Amazon until right the last minute... So they are ready to buy.
A stand-alone store is VERY tough to make money with. Every big Amazon earner I've spoken with does it through plain old links placed within good, original content.
Yes Google sees the duplicate content and penalises the sites. There isn't a way around this with AOM - you need a script that will allow you to add unique content. Note that it is not the duplicate script that is the problem, it is the fact that there is no unique content or value to the site.
I have stressed this in many other threads but YES, Google frowns on dup. content. I have used Associate-o-matic but in a special way. I created a site full of reviews and content with a link to the AOM site that contained the product. I had decent success. I am a HUGE phpZon and ReviewAZON fan now that can be used in Worpress. I really like to have a product page with an image, a good product review and then the ReviewAZON call button at the end of the informative article. It looks very professional, IMO, and has been the best Amazon script/plugin that I have ever used.
I have written a script that allows users to build a site in a special way. Instead of the typical scripts that builds a store with all products from Amazon or within particular node amazon, you write content to keep your site from being a labeled as a thin affiliate site and then add the keywords that you would like to search Amazon for. (i.e. Zakk Wylde Gibson Les Paul or something to this effect.) I also have a Wordpress plugin available as well. The upside to both the WP version and stand alone version is that they work not only with Amazon, but you have the option to turn on/off cj ads and eBay ads as well. Again, they are optional but give you the potential to earn even more money. You can check them out at http://phppig.org/103/.
Matt Curtis from Google's search quality team has stated publicly that Google has no such thing as a duplicate content penalty. You will still show up in search results with duplicate content. Try it yourself. Go to Amazon and pick the first paragraph of any product description and copy it into a Google search field. I just tried it for a Playstation 3. You'll see many sites listed with the exact same content. Of course, only the one with the most Link Love will rise to the top of the search (almost always the original Amazon page), and your duplicate page will get buried. Original content will always be better since you might show up for keywords that the original Amazon page (and the hundreds of copies) didn't target. AOM is ok, I've used the free version on a couple of sites. You need a very narrow focus and a ton of backlinks to get anything to show up in a search engine. Honestly, it's only good as an add on to an already ranked original content site if the default Amazon Astore doesn't meet your needs.
Do you have that statement from Matt Curtis? I wonder about the details of this - your correct in that you will still rank, but I can't imagine two idential pages competing against each other for the same keyword. I think it is about if you have some unique and some duplicate content... True on the AOM statement - you can only get away with very small niches and even then, it is a matter of time before your penalised. But the store.math.com is a good example of using it as a compliment to an existing site.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/09/demystifying-duplicate-content-penalty.html It wasn't Matt Cutts (I even got his name wrong), but on the Google blog a few years ago. That isn't to say your site won't plummet if you only syndicate content and nothing else. The store.math.com issue though is telling the other way though. They don't rank in the top 200 in Google for almost anything they're selling, despite having high Page Rank. Look at them on Yahoo and Bing though and they're in the top 5 for many of those same items. Look at the individual product pages and both Yahoo and Google list 0 backlinks to their top couple of product pages at math.com. Might also have something to do with it.
Thanks for the link, and I was wondering who Matt Curtis was haha! Taking a quote from that article: That would suggest their are penalties for scraping content, which is essentially what you are doing with programs like AOM. I believe they are temporary penalties i.e. if you add some unique content they will be removed. Also if you use a mix of the Amazon content (or say default manufacturer content) and your own content then you won't have any problem, providing the content you add is significant. On the store.math.com I meant to say that this is an example of a site using AOM without worrying about the search engine results. They obviously get enough traffic to the main site and then they just click through to the store. It is also tricky to build links to actual products on an AOM store because they are just a complete scrape of Amazon, and also they are directly linked to Amazon - so if the title changes on Amazon, your URL for the product page changes.
I really really really do not recommend using scripts and services such as Amazon-O-Matic, WordPress Plugins or anything else similar. These programs are developed using Amazon's API, which means your profits are reduced even more because the creator of the scripts gets part of the revenue, too. So you're actually sharing the commission you make with both Amazon and the creator of the scripts/plugins. I recommend you build your own healthy website, and include a separate page using an iFrame to link to your aStore - on all the other pages of your website use Amazon's Widgets. You'll make a lot more money that way, believe me. Hope that helps, Lynn.
Lynn, You are far from the reality. The full AOM script does not share revenue... That's why it's paid. With aStore you give Amazon the links that will be better going to your own domain.
100% false. The only case where this happens is the free version of AOM, and it clearly states on the website. No other scripts/plugins do this. You could make money doing this if you can get traffic. But these stores won't perform well in search engines, so you are forced to use PPC or other methods.
I have developed several webstore specific for amazon associate for my client. If you do interest on such, drop me a pm.
I have also seen "free scripts" and hacked copies of paid scripts where they have modified it so you never get any comissions. The hacker does instead, and you do all the hardwork. So please be wary of free scripts and pirated scripts.