Ros' article 'How to Build a 1,000-Page Content ......

[virajw]

I feel some folks have totally misunderstood Ros' article 'How to Build a 1,000-Page Content Site in Mere Seconds! http://netprofitstoday.com/_npc/2005-02-08.html She wasn't advocating such websites should be an alternative to good content rich websites. Far from it. What she meant was adding a thousand pages or more of merchandise can be achieved using an automated system. Else, if such was the criteria of going up the ranks of Google, then all websites with thousands of webpages would be ranked high. Fortunately, it doesn't work that way.

Some webmasters who have dynamic product feeds specifically keep the search robots away from them by using a " User-Agent: * Disallow: /cgi-bin " command on the Robots.txt file which effectively tell all Search Engines Not to index pages in a specific directory. Some use .htaccess transfers to redirect misguided searchbots.

Ever wondered why they do it if more was better ????
Viraj

[Rosalind Gardner]

Hi Viraj,

Thanks for your comment. You got it right on the money, and you're absolutely right about adding a robots.txt file.

I won't do that for my small directories, 'cause the content on every page is my own and therefore unique. But for a large merchant datafeed, I would think that is an absolutely necessary addition to the site.

Thanks for bringing that point up.

Cheers,
Ros

[virajw]

Hi Ros,
Yeah, I was just wondering what this confusion about your article was all about when it was plain as ABC. On the topic of content, yes you can promote affiliate products by simply modifying the original feed. I do that all the time even though I promote thousands of products using data feeds. The Search engines will penalize you only if your article is a 100% match with the rest. You can always tweak your script so that the tags, headings and format differs from the rest.

As for promoting ClickBank products, learning some precis writing can be very helpful. True, this is not an automated system, but if you are good at precis writing, you can summarize what's found on the owner's website so that it appears original. This is not plagiarism but simply a time saving method. English precis writing was a subject I specifically chose as an elective while at College and boy hasn't that been helpful !

For those unfamiliar with precis writing, its simply summarizing an article to be less than a predetermined number of words. Keep on paraphrasing and editing it until it fits your predetermined word count. If you can do ONE product daily, that will add up.
viraj

[daddyg]

[virajw]

When SE check for similarities, its not only the 'text' that they look for. An HTML page has about 50% hidden content, so they check all of that as well. Plus the usual HTML tags. There are many ways in which you can change your webpages; CSS, DHTML, XML ect.

The extent to which you can modify your feed also depends on your feed provider. Amazon is the leader in this area and their APF can be customized in a zillion ways using XML. Unfortunately, Amazon's feed is also the hardest to configure especially if you are a newbie. APF can be an absolute nightmare because several templates are combined to generate one dynamic webpage using a process called "Nesting" which itself is a very grey area. ( Amazon doesn't provide any help mind you !!!)

In fact Amazon clearly states that unless you have a XML prg., experience you should not dabble with it. I believe there are companies that sell special scripts to use Amazon's feed but they are pretty much cookie cutter stuff and you'll be one of the many using the same script. That way the whole purpose is defeated I guess!! Other companies that provide feeds simply don't have the resources to match Amazon's feed. As such customization can be rather limited.

Ooops...when I said "tweaking" I meant XML tweaking - sorry about that. XML tags can be listed in such a way that your page appears unique. Plus, Modifiers and Language files are used to change what's displayed by XML. For instance if Amazon's original feed says "Amazon.com Price is $15.50" You can modify that to "Check this out dude, this is $15.50"

Cool huh?
Viraj