Datafeed Affiliate Sites

[Felina]

Anyone have any opinions on datafeed driven affiliate sites?
Script where you can download a merchants datafeed and process it thru a dbase and have 40,000 html pages up and running in an hour is a neat idea but the viability of this sort of site leaves me wondering?
Is this the newest latest fad?
So many datafed sites out their all looking alike.
How long before Google and other engines start penalizing them?
Any comments good or bad?

[jeremy goodrich]

Any time you build a site it should have a 'unique selling proposition' so if the datafeed is 100% the same as somebody else is already using, then it won't do you much good.

What I would do is use the merchant database as a starting point - and then customize everything, etc, modify the layout or what not. Add some interactive features. Make it more personalized, interesting, engaging.

That way, there are things for your users to 'do' and make them come back to the site - you sell more that way perhaps.

Just some thoughts.

[Felina]

Jeremy,
I agree with you 100% but it seems among my colleagues I am the odd person out.
I still stick to the old fashioned methods and build individual pages, I find that those build that way tend to stay even in SE results over time.
I've seen datafeed sites rank high for a month or two then they are gone, while my pages stay steady thru most of the SE algo changes..
Hopefully it's just a fad that will burn out quickly.

[buckworks]

I'm sure it won't be long until SEs develop filters that give script-generated megasites less weight.

New domain ... a zillion pages with the same template ... odd linkpop patterns .... full of affiliate links ... hmmm ...

[edited by: buckworks at 5:44 am (utc) on Mar. 8, 2003]

[jeremy goodrich]

The last site I launched based on a db & a template, which is essentially the same thing as a datafeed, got indexed & was getting traffic from Inktomi, Google, and FAST in less than 3 weeks.

In addition, the site used a db that was the *exact same* as at least 3 other sites were using, because it was free data.

So, used wisely - yes, datafeeds can be a good thing. :)

[Woz]

As you say Jeremy, the trick that will give a datafed site longevity and success will be that "something different", the angle, the presentation, the way the data is used, and so on. I agree that simple one size fits all datafeed sites will quickly become flavour of the month and disappear. With care however, they offer great potential.

Onya
Woz