Product feeds...HTML, Javascript or iFrame?

[classixuk]

Hi Everyone,
I'm setting up one of my first product feeds and was wondering what advice you might have about the different formats?

As far as I am aware, these are the pros and cons of each but I'd appreciate any comments:

javascript: Won't work if the user has javascript turned off in their browser, cannot be crawled by search engine bots BUT easy to update (just one line of code).

iFrame: Will work for all browsers but will not be crawled by search engines.

HTML: Will work for all browsers and will be crawled by search engines but will have to be manually updated once per week or so (which can be a pain if using lots of different product feeds).

I thought about using a PHP include for the HTML, but I have just discovered that in sites using Joomla this is more or less impossible!

Could the more experienced affiliates using product feeds let us know about their experiences and which methods have worked the best for them?
I'm imagining that for organic results that HTML will be the only way to go, but that perhaps for PPC an iFrame would suffice?

What do you think?

[Stellar]

HTML is the way to go if you can manage it. You've already stated the SEO benefits and even for PPC I think it is still desirable. The reason being that with Google's PPC they still crawl your landing page and probably pages linking from the landing page and the quality of your content makes a massive difference to your min bid. If your product info is in javascript or an iframe, the crawler can't read it.

I feed product feeds into a mysql database and query that database on the site depending on what the user selects/filters.

[classixuk]

That's interesting Stellar. Thanks for posting that. Could I ask a couple of questions?

The feed going straight to mySql sounds interesting. Which software are you using for that?

Also, the PPC...I didn't realise that my bid would be affected by the content of the landing page.
So, let's say that I am selling fruit on a website.

My initial intention was to make the landing page for, let's say, an apples advert in to the "shop listing" for apples. Of course, if Google crawls that page specifically for PPC there will be a lot of affiliate links (one for each type of apple) and Google won't like that.

Do you think I should create a content rich landing page all about apples, and place an internal link from it to my "apples shop"?

Any advice would be appreciated guys.

Thanks again.

[Stellar]

I don't use any software. I have written PHP scripts to handle the whole thing. If you are not a PHP developer, then I'm not sure what to suggest software wise. Hopefully someone else on here will have some suggestions.

re PPC - yes having a content rich landing page that then links into your "shop listing page" should help. The only thing is, the google crawler will still find its way to your shop listing page, so it will still know that you are an affiliate site. But at least you are offering added value to the end user with your content rich landling page, and google will appreciate that more than just having a shop listing page.

One way to do it is to have a redirect page between your landline page and the merchant site. So your landing page does not link direct to the merchant. Then you pull the merchant link out of a database on the redirect page and redirect the user to that merchant via the link. And you use the same page to record any tracking data. You then use your robots.txt page to disallow the google bots from indexing the redirect page.

Of course, all this stuff requires a knowledge of a scripting language like PHP. So if you don't have that, either learn real fast, get someone who does, or find some 3rd Party software. Or just don't bother and do what you can without it!

[Barry]

Try Kungfumobiles - http://www.affilistore.com/ its a great script if you have no knowledge of how to create you own php scripts.

Ta

[classixuk]

Again, thanks for an interesting post Stellar.

My knowledge of PHP is very basic, but I'm assuming I could achieve a simliar result with the following:

A link that says "Buy Now" would link to say /PHP_redirects/buyapples.php.
The buyapples.php file would be a PHP redirect to the affiliate URL.
In robots.txt you would disallow the folder /PHP_redirects.

That's the only way I could think of doing it as my knowledge of mySQL is still at the ABC stage.

Of course, that way would take ages to complete for a multiple product feed, but I'm not quite ready yet to employ somebody (I'd want to market test first).

So, working with what knowledge I have right now, I basically see 2 options available to me:

1. Have an Apples landing page with an intro about apples and then a paragraph or 2 on each different BRAND of apple available to buy. At the top of each paragraph I could have a link that leads to "buyapples.php"

2. Have individual landing pages for each different brand of apple with a short intro about apples, then 2 or 3 paragraphs about that particular brand of apple, followed by an iFrame containing the product feed with prices, affiliate links, and descriptions for each individual apple (this way the affiliate links are hidden)

Which do you think would be the better solution?

P.S. As a side note about this forum, has anybody else noticed that thread views don't seem to get registered properly? I can see that there are 88 people viewing the Affiliates Lounge, yet the forum looks very quiet because the thread views on each thread don't seem to be registered. For instance, on this thread, only 3 views were registered, yet there were 4 people viewing the thread when I checked? That's a bit strange!

[classixuk]

Originally Posted by Barry Try Kungfumobiles - http://www.affilistore.com/ its a great script if you have no knowledge of how to create you own php scripts. Ta

Thanks Barry, that script looks fantastic. Are you using it yourself, or are you involved in the development?
It appears to cloak the affiliate links on the demo site, is that correct?

Thanks again!

[Barry]

Nope not involved, but have downloaded it and found it easy to use. There is also dmorisons http://www.pricetapestry.com/ which which has been mentioned in another thread with you that is also good for the cash.

Ta

[kungfumobiles]

Thanks for your comments Barry. Hi classixuk, AffiliStore does cloak the affiliate links with a redirect php script. It is free to download so have a go and let me know if you have any problems.

I'm currently working on a final version which will include a lot more options and flexiblity but have just released v0.2 (about 10 minutes ago) which has some security updates and small bug fixes.

[classixuk]

Hi Guys,

Barry, I looked at the pricetapestry website, but to be honest I'm not at that stage yet (either in terms of expenditure or affiliate schemes), but the link to affilistore is the type of thing I was looking for so thanks for that!

KungFuMobiles, I have downloaded and installed your script (v0.2). I have also registered on your forum (so please verify my account if you haven't already )

I'll bombard you with feedback and suggestions over the next few weeks using your forum but for the benefit of everyone using this forum, I will say this much:

Time taken to install and configure AffiliStore: 6 minutes.
Results: WOW WOW WOW!!!
Satisfaction: An extra WOW again.
Recommend?: A definite YES!

You just have to check the script out to see what I'm talking about. It's AMAZING! The only downside is that I set up (manually) product feeds from another affiliate 2 days ago and it took me all day! I wish I'd known about AffiliStore then!

Can't wait for the full release!

Here's a question for you though KFM, will you offer a generous discount to your beta testers , or are you planning to have the product priced very low and charge for templates (that seems to be how it looks on your site)?

[kungfumobiles]

Glad you like it . Thanks for the really positive feedback. I'm definately open to suggestions so please fire away, I've got a list of ideas which I'm working my way thourgh for v1.0, I will post them on my development blog as I complete them.

As for a price for the final version, not decided on that just yet. But once released I still intend to provide the basic version for free.

Now that you have installed AffiliStore have a go of the free reciprocal links directory, just as easy to install and will run on the same db as AffiliStore. See my sig for link.