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It appears they are software generated websites produced to get high rankings in search engines, to send traffic to active eBay auctions.
My question, is what software was used to make these sites? They all have current auction listings and many at that, which makes me certain these were software produced. Does anyone have an idea of the software used to generate these sites?
Thanks,
Tom
[edited by: agerhart at 1:45 pm (utc) on Dec. 30, 2003]
[edit reason] removed URLs - read TOS [/edit]
A useful URL is below (I hope it ok to do this)
[pages.ebay.com...]
The sites I am referring to are keyword rich pages, that appear to be dynamically produced with meta tags, keyword titles, keywords in pages, etc. These pages then contain links to active eBay auctions that are related to these keywords. The pages pull listings and categories from eBay and create a "category tree" of keywords and related auctions.
I looked at eBay's tools for affiliates, and didn't see this as being something they offer. So I am wondering what software was used to generate these pages? It seems like a good tool for sellers to generate search engine traffic to their auctions. Now if I can only find out what software produces these pages. Any one have an idea?
I've seen software that does this for web pages, but nothing for eBay auctions.
If anyone has an idea of what software can produce these dynamic keyword rich SE pages for eBay auctions, please let me know.
Thanks
Tom
[edited by: agerhart at 8:33 pm (utc) on Dec. 31, 2003]
I have a few PHP pages like what you described. But, it's so competitive to be in the search engines that obviously I'm not going to reveal the source code to anyone. Every thing I learn on my own to do this, you can too with time and effort -- and you'll use what you know for other affiliate programs beyond Ebay.
Akogo
Create a list of up to 25 listings that complement your content
LOL. 25 listings won't get you far. Would it be a violation of TOS to "mirror" more eBay auctions? tomld2, could you please sticky me the URL?
The eBay's Editor Kit allows affiliates to copy and paste Javascript code which shows up to 200 listings on your web page... I know it says 25 on the landing page, but when you sign up, you'll discover you can post more than that...
[pages.ebay.com...]
Akogo
That's problem number two. Googlebot won't see this.
... you can easily work around that with surrounding related "content" which will be indexed by the search engines... I have done this with other affiliate programs that supply Javascript code... so it can and is being done.
Akogo
What I was alluding to is that you have to do it manually. Would be a whole lot nicer if one could automate this, know what I mean?
GoogleBot may not see the original page with linked JavaScript code, but I'm confident that the pages crawled by Google are search engine friendly.
Of course they are :-) crawled pages are always search engine friendly :)
OK, was just kidding.
Want you meant is that the eBay pages are crawler friendly?
No, the JavaScript that eBay gives is not crawlable. But the people running these sites convert the JavaScript content and make it "static".
OK, this make sense then.
What I was alluding to is that you have to do it manually. Would be a whole lot nicer if one could automate this, know what I mean?
I'm not sure what "manually" means, but the pages on my sites are generated "dynamically" from a flat-file database and the PHP code outputs a search engine friendly URL that looks like it's a "static" HTML page like this:
http://www.mysite.com/eBay/auctions/jewelry.htmlNo "?", "=" or "&" characters to give away it's a dynamic site or the ".php" extension to give away the programming language used.
I'm not sure what "automate this" means, but you can get the script to create "automatically" "keyword rich" hyperperlinks to hundreds or thousands of different eBay auction topics. Just supply the script with a flat-file database of these "keywords" or phrases." And from there, the script fills in a template for each keyword and brings up an eBay auction that is related to the keyword selected.
I'm definitely not writing each page one by one. The script will generate the hundreds or thousands of "different" content pages automatically. All you have to do is "set it up" (write the script and test it) once and let it go out in the wild.
Believe me it does work and my sites are listed in Google.
Hope this clearifies.
Akogo
Are you currently using dynamically created "keyword" rich pages to advertise auctions to earn money from eBay's affiliate program? And if you are, you are using your own custom PHP script to generate these pages, correct?
Without giving away your site address or secrets, can you give me an idea of the daily visitors or alexa rankings of your sites?
I'm trying to find a solution for my own auctions in this fashion.
Got it :-)
I have a domain just for eBay auctions... the homepage is in the Google cache... the other pages should soon show up... I've just started as an eBay affiliate recently... however, I am an Amazon Associate and use the same scripting methods which show up in Google searches.
ipohopper,
I'm looking beyond the 5 cent per bid. The site will also get revenue from Adsense, Amazon, etc. "Short cuts" in the way I build a site will help in minimizing the time and effort to complete it. Besides, domain names are under $10 a year these days and my web host allows ten domains to run from one account... so cost is not an issue.
Akogo
I'm haven't gotten to the level of analysis I think you are suggesting. All I know is I'm pumping out pages like mad and the more pages I have, the more traffic I get. I try not to focus on any specific keyword for now but prefer a shot gun approach so perhaps some traffic may come from results beyond 30+. I don't eliminate any keywords that are related to the site because I want to come up on as many results as possible, no matter what the position is or how it may effect "competing?" words.
Akogo
Note that some of the pages you are talking about with ebay listings are site scraping, completely against ebay TOS. Ebay bundles their listings into a nice javascript array so it's easy to grab that and decode with php.
One domain, which is a related keyword phrase.
amznVibe
Good point that you mentioned scraping, but that is NOT what I'm doing. I'm using eBay's supplied Javascript for the listings. I asked Google about eBay listings... they didn't say no eBay listings on the same page, but of course they only gave a general email response taken from the TOS. I'm sure they'll tell me if it's not okay... but so far related ads do appear.
Akogo
Can you clarify this?
Is this in accordance to eBay's TOS?
Those sites are easy to spot. The only "service" they are doing that I think is worthwhile is keeping old ebay listings archived which ebay does not hold for long or make available to you if you did not "watch" the item.
Personally I hope Google moves to block the scrapers as they spam the listings bigtime. Ebay won't be able to block them (for long) because they can just change spider IPs and if they are outside of ebay's countries of business nearly impossible to sue.
:)
But creating 'static' content from their JS, do you think that's TOS conform?
Yahoo auctions has a nice "previous" auctions search, I wish ebay would wise-up and offer that too. Anyone actually use yahoo auctions, I found them fairly well done, too bad they only have a fraction of the ebay traffic even when they are practically giving away listings for free.
He means (I think) the ebay editor kit which gives you a snippet of javascript to use and is completely within their TOS.
Correct.
dirkz,
But creating 'static' content from their JS
eBay's javascript is left intact, copied straight from the editor kit. Related "Static" content is created "around the dynamic" eBay javascript listings... the focal point.
Easier to understand if you log on to the editor kit and try it yourself.
Akogo
