http://cellphone.dothanclassifiedads.com/ You just said all the information is pulled off of Amazon, that's NOT good for SEO rankings, obviously. Now if you plan on making this into a big thing, more websites are going to be displaying the same information, so even more duplicate content... And you aren't the only website that's "smart" enough to leech off of Amazon, they've been around for years and so have people that like quick content. The only difference is that they change the order of their content so it doesn't look so obvious. You just keep the same content, and it becomes blatantly obvious you ripped Amazon's content. Point in case: http://cellphone.dothanclassifiedads.com/index.cfm?P=Details_A&ID=B0002OQVWU http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...raditional+phone+companies&btnG=Google+Search Don't say my analysis is wrong after reading that... Plus, I never said it was a bad product, I just said some pages are not SEO-friendly. It's fine if you plan on simply bringing visitors through links and all that.
Sixty6, Thanks for further elaborating. From your first post, it sounded like you thought the entire site would have problems. I understand now that you are not saying that. And I'm glad. I've placed many keyword phrases on the first page of Google with this site, so I'm pretty confident... I do agree with you on some points: 1) Agree: Some pages will do better on SEO than others. 2) Agree: Pages with pure Amazon content will perform the worst out of the entire site. 3) Disagree: The site will have an overall duplicate content penalty. If you look back through the thread, you'll see several references to the pages that have unique content on them, combined with topic-relevant RSS, as the best performing. The recommended approach is that the store operator writes one mini-article per day based on keyword research using the free DigitalPoint Keyword Suggestion tool. Make sure to use that phrase in the title and in the body several times. Pick phrases that are related to the niche you're in. Build links to those pages any way possible.. I think you'd agree with this strategy for SEO. BTW - This product pulls from eBay, Commission Junction and Amazon... Cheers...
I always use URLSnooper for checking things like that. It sniffs all urls. One of my favorite most used tools. and its FREE! http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/urlsnooper/index.html
First of all, I just want to make it clear that I am stating my own opinion here (because this is not my product to speak for) and relying on my knowledge of the subject. So, I do not want to step on Purdue512's toes. But, please...correct me if I am wrong here: Since each store has built its own niche, you may actually rank higher than Amazon for a particlular product due to relevancy. Currently, I am receiving visitors organically through Google with very little promotion. Same thing for my BANS stores, I rank higher with many products than Ebay does. Does Amazon not welcome this? If you are part of the Amazon Associates program, you have access to product descriptions, feeds, etc. Isn't this exactly what A-stores do for you? With all due respect to Sixty6...
Amazon has been around for years and has been gaining nothing but Google's trust, it seems like quite an aspiration to hope that taking Amazon's content and ranking higher than them would work based on content relevancy...Content relevancy can only take you so far, Google's internal ranking does the rest and I'm sure that Amazon (one of the biggest sites on the web) would beat any website owned by anyone on DigitalPoint. But I didn't know you also took information from the other sources, which seems nice but how are you getting information from CJ?
I think it is set up just fine. I know the product descriptions are pulled from Amazon, but nothing on the main page is Duplicate content, the site owner has to set all that up theirselves. Also when we spotlight products we are supposed to write fresh content and product reviews and pick our own keywords so these individual pages will be just fine aswell. The only time you see the rest is if you go into the product descrition or product reviews section.. I think the SEO will be fine as we keep building links and adding our own relevant content on the other 90% of the site..
It is in beta form (version 0.54 right now). These folks here in this thread (24 of them) have helped me find and kill over 60 bugs. They've also come up with a great list of enhancements to add to the product, some of which have been pushed out to production already. I'll PM you. Please also join us at http://forum.compare4.us Cheers Fair point. Let's be clear: Nobody's claiming to be building an Amazon here. That being said, there is BIG opportunity to help Amazon sell their stuff (as you know). I think you'd also be surprised at the types of folks you run into around here. I personally aim very high! And I've run into guys just like me on DP, who have sold their previous businesses and are looking to build new teams for new products. If you'd like to talk on the phone or IM, I will tell you about my past businesses and give you a flavor of what I've achieved in the past. Most people think of CJ as simply a place to get affiliate links. CJ does, however, also offer a service to their merchants (advertisers) to actually submit a full product catalog to the CJ database (think: Shopzilla). This portion of their service is not as well known, but it allows publishers (us) to do more than just offer a link to a merchant. CJ has an API (http://webservices.cj.com/) that allows you to do the same thing you can do with Amazon and eBay: Send in keywords and pull back actual products with info and prices that you can display on your site. The main difference is that the CJ API requires a SOAP interface (via WSDL), whereas you can get eBay and Amazon products with simple REST calls (though both also offer SOAP also). As I'm sure you know, SOAP is significantly more complicated to work with so I think this makes scripts related to CJ's API less popular. Maybe? So our project here is to see if we could make an interesting product that combines the following main components: 1) Commission Junction products via API 2) Amazon products via API 3) eBay products via API 4) Feed content via RSS 5) Article publishing capability for unique content The idea was to organize these 5 building blocks in an easy-to-use web interface so an Internet Marketer could spawn their own instance of the software, put in their CJ PID and Amazon Associate ID, and have full control over the store WITHOUT having to know any programming languages or have any server technical skills. No installs, no coding. This is exactly what we've done. It's far from perfect, but it's a solid beta at this point with 24 beta-tester instances running and a few of my own. Cheers
Thanks for letting the team know Jon.. Post here or at forum.compare4.us with issues.. Log bugs directly in your store under ADMIN. A few updates: 1) The domain name sign-up integration is going well. We've brought up Name Servers so that the DNS task will be a little easier now. I will be writing new instructions to simply point your name servers at us. Also, people who buy a store will get a free domain name and the DNS will be auto set-up... 2) I've been thinking about widgets. I get GREAT back-links from my widgets. Particularly with widgets that offer some value to the end-user. I was thinking that perhaps I should add a "Widget Module" to the niche store. While this may not be directly related to the niche, the back-links are so powerful for making the site rank, I thought it would be helpful. Please let me know if you would use this feature.. Thx
I think the Widget Idea would be great and I would be very receptive to it, as long as the layout of the site still looks professional and not to much like a blog with a lot of extra stuff on it.. Also I am loving this setup. I am good with the Marketing and have learned a lot about the SEO side of things, but as far a designing a professional looking site I am a novice, so this setup has been great for me and looks great for my customers and I actually made my first sale last friday and got a $10 commission from CJ
Okay.. Thanks for the feedback. I have a few ideas on how to do this. A product widget is certainly doable, but those are harder to place. I've had the best luck with widgets that actually *do* something helpful / useful for the end-user. For example, see my weather widget at blogskinny: http://weather.blogskinny.com So, I'm sure you're thinking "but what does the weather have to do with my affiliate marketing efforts?" Well, notice that you can put a link in the code block with the widget. In that way, you're getting a back-link in return for providing a service (in this case, weather info). This works well. And you are NOT buying links, so you're well within the Google guidelines... I was thinking that the weather widget would be the first I'd put into the store. But I'm open to adding a product widget as well. Any other ideas?
I can see how this would give you backlinks, but how would it give us backlinks? People arent going to come to our store to find a weather widget to add to there blog so how would we gain a backlink from it? I am fairly new to this so maybe I am missing something here.. Please explain..
I could see how product widgets could become difficult. Otherwise, traffic or news widgets are always popular too!
Sorry: The widget would be served from YOUR url... So the back-link would be all yours (i.e., to your domain). I know the whole thing seems odd, but let me try to explain again: If you had a "weather widget" landing page in your niche store (under your url), you could either get traffic to it through bum marketing, article writing or advertising... Now, people who come to your weather page are not going to be customers of yours because they are interested in the widget, not buying a product through CJ. But that's okay. They post the widget on their blog and now you have a back-link to your store because the widget is served by your domain (because the Niche Store platform will support this). This helps your SERP a TON... Repeat this enough times, and you'll be PR 6 which will help drive organic traffic to your store. I've used this myself many times. I just never thought of building it into a product platform. But I don't see why not. I'm sure people will say: "Back links from sites that are in your niche are much more powerful than non-related back-links." And they are correct. However, EVERY link counts. Do a little reading and you'll see there is no such thing as a bad back-link... Did that help clarify?
Yes, I thought thats what you meant, but I was not sure how we were going to get people to put it on there blog.. How many backlinks a day do you recommend building for a new website? Also you never answered my PM from yesterday.. Please let me know whats up..
Sorry Chad... PM sent. Sales page is just about done. Will be ready within a week. I will send instructions for posting affiliate links. You will also be able to sell store sign-ups through your store and get affiliate credit at the agreed-upon rate. I did a couple experiments and found that about 10 per day got me to PR 5 within 6 months. Of course, more will get you higher faster... IMHO, advertising to a widget that has real value for end-users and gives you a back-link is the way to go. Then all your conversions will come from organic traffic. Finally, anyone willing to beta-testing PriceRunner in their store? PriceRunner is pay-per-click, like Adsense, as opposed to Amazon, eBay, and CJ who pay per sale. I'd like to add this into the product if possible as a 5th revenue stream. Please let me know. Cheers.
Id be willing to try the Price Runner thing, It says I get .35 per click, but I joined it about 4 days ago and I still have a pending application, but If I get approved I would be willing to Ad it..
That's been about my average from them (around $.27 - $.45 per click). I like their program because they have no volume limits. So it's good for the Compare4.us Niche Store platform. Let me know when you get approved and we'll get your store set up as special beta-beta-test of this function. If it goes well, we can roll it out to the rest as an additional source of income. Also - Looking for a volunteer to help me test our DNS via our new Name Servers. Anyone willing to lend a hand? Simply update your name servers for the domain for your Niche Store to: ns1.compare4.us ns2.compare4.us And PM me when you've done it so I can build the appropriate entries. Please include your domain name in the PM. Many thanks...