<iframe>Live product data</iframe>

[D-Mac]

Tweet

We are a merchant, and are looking for ways to help affiliates display our live product data.

I understand that the standard way to do this is to supply a data feed in csv format. This is fine for affiliates with technical expertise in this area, but what about the rest?

Presumably affiliates without the technical know how rely on static html when displaying products. The main problem with this is the potential for prices to change, or even worse for products to be removed from the merchant's site, but for the affiliate to continue displaying them.

One way around this is to use iframes. A person browsing the affiliate site would not be able to distinguish between the affiliates own content and the live content supplied by the merchant. The main advantage of iframes over more complex feeds is the ease of installation - they run on ALL servers, no matter what the configuration. Implementing the code in a webpage is very easy. With a login the affiliate could potentially customise the iframe's appearance to match that of their own site, select which products they wish to display etc.

Is this an ideal solution to the problem of maintaining a product database without technical expertise......or not?

[lowndsy]

Harder for search engines to spot, and you'd get complaints about customisability.
You could basically look at the complaints levelled at Google Adsense (better now since they introduced new colours and different sizes but not perfect). If you implemented some sort of theming system to make the iframe fit in with as many sites as possible then you'd get away with it - Adsense does.
The easiest way would be to have the iframe displaying a php file and pass the theme as parameters
- eg. < i frame>domain.com?bg=red&text=blue etc < / I frame>
or
domain.com?theme=light if you don't want to hand over full control of the look of the page. Pretty much anyone could knock up a nice little generator to create the desired code for users to drop into their site. You could even create lots of different pages using different colours and "fake" a generator that just picks the correct page to show the link for.

The difference with this approach and adsense is that you want the results to be spidered by search engines, which is a bit hit and miss - anyone know which engines notice iframes?

[Keith]

Much better to use a php include than an iframe that way integration is totally seamless and SE friendly.

[lowndsy]

Originally posted by Keith
Much better to use a php include than an iframe

I'd prefer php too but not everyone uses php - I suppose you could offer the same php file as an include or an iframe, though to do it properly you'd have to identify to the page which method was being used so it could display body and html tags etc.
eg:
www.domain.com?method=iframe&colourinfo...

if $ method is not = inc
{display html/body headers and footers}

and then the content that would be visible to everone

most people would be able to see the content without HTML tags but then someone with a stupid open source linux browser on a clockwork computer made out of old biscuit tins might have a problem and maybe not spend loads of money at your site.

if you did use php (or ASP etc) it'd be safest to to audit the processor time used by the php page to make sure your servers can cope.

[Azam.net]

Great thread.

Yes, would be great if there were less complex ways of integrating dynamically-updated content into our sites.

Not everyone is an expert.

That's why the TD content units are so good.

[lowndsy]

Yup, a simple to include but customisable and SE friendy product feed would be great but I don't think it exists.
As a rule you can choose from ease of use, reliability and adaptability - you can get one two but not all three from each approach. Javascript would be the best if Ses could see it, and PHP would be best if you didn't need to rename files then check your server for compatibility and know how to use it.

Anyone got an approach that might fit the bill?

[D-Mac]

I have been thinking quite a bit about the idea of a PHP/ASP/JSP,etc include, and like it very much. Overall, it is better than the iframe idea.

However, one drawback of an individual merchant using includes is that their data cannot be combined with data from other merchants, unless the Affiliate Networks implement the system.

Azam.com - What are TD content units?

One advantage of using includes is that it potentially enables shoppers on the affiliates site to use the merchants search facility & shopping basket. In theory, a whole micro-merchant site could exist within the affiliate's site. Online franchise?

[watcher]

"In theory, a whole micro-merchant site could exist within the affiliate's site. Online franchise?"

Now you're into the realms of white labelling which is becoming very popular.

[ianm]

The main problem with using includes is as Express Chemist says, it is harder to combine products from more than one merchant.

If you are running a comparison site then you need to have access to the raw data so that you can stick it in a database and run queries on it to select relevant products and order them the way that you want them.

If you have a whole load of includes coming from different merchants then you lose some of that flexibility as you can really only display the information that the merchant provides.

But then again, if you've got the knowledge to produce a comparison site - you will be able to handle CSV files with no problem. So offering both a CSV file and includes allows the more technically adept affiliates to do their own thing, and the less skilled to at least be able to incorporate some product information.

[lowndsy]

There is a reason why none of the networks provide php style includes to their merchants as standard - not everyone uses php! (or ASP, coldfusion, jsp et al) Taking into consideration the commonly quoted figure that at most 10% of affiliates of a program generate significant revenue, and the safe assumption that many of them are quite happy with html, you would be alienating an awful lot of people. That's why javascript is used extensively - fair enough it has drawbacks but at least we can all use it.
Even the less active affiliates generate some sales, and they are useful for brand reinforcement if nothing else - the super affiliates (I'm not one of them...yet!) might say they'd love includes but I don't really see how you could safely provide them.

The only idea I have is to use .csv or some other data format and offer different ways of including it that only need to be written once - a php/ASP include, an Iframe, Javascript(?), raw feed etc. That way you'donly change one set of data and affiliates code would remain the same. It would require a decent coder to get it running smmothly but once it was up and running you'd have one of the most integratable systems out there. You'd also gobble up bandwidth but that's the price you pay...