phpBay Pro Tips

Archive for September, 2008

I just got an email from EPN. Thankfully it wasn’t a deactivation email (these days my heart pounds every time i get an email from them). Here is the email:

Hello Ross Gordon,

We have identified an issue that may be inflating revenue data in eBay Partner Network reports. Due to an issue with one of our databases, some of the revenue fees for publishers were double-counted in our system. The issue appears to have affected publishers only from Sept 5th-Sept 9th, and only in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada programs. Although the impact varies by publisher, the revenue was overstated by as much as 20% or more for those 5 days.

We have been able to calculate down to the individual publisher level what the correct revenue should be for those days. Our team is in the process of correcting the associated data and tables but may take several more days to complete this task. In the meantime, please keep this information in mind as you run any reports that span the associated time periods.

That may explain why my earnings went down $25 already this month. But right now I’m at $407 for the month. I hope it doesn’t go down any more.

These days it seems like eBay and EPN are screwing up every way possible. They really need to start getting their act together or else they are gonna crash.

Anyone else get that email or notice their earnings go down?

Allan Lewis just released another amazing wordpress plugin special for phpBay Pro sites. The plugin is called Search2Post.

What does it do? Like the name suggests, this plugin creates a new page or post on your site every time an item is searched, and then displays search results from eBay to the person searching.

The really cool thing about this plugin is the content randomization engine. It allows all the new posts this plugin creates to have unique content.

I installed this plugin a few days ago on my Apple Laptop Shop phpBay Pro site and i already have over 15 new pages of content. And i didn’t do an once of work.

Here’s how i recommend using this plugin:

I created a post category called “Recent Searches.” Set that category to show in your sidebar. In the plugin options in the widgets section of your wordpress admin, set the plugin to create posts out of all new searches (not pages). Then set them to go into the “Recent Searches” category. Follow the other basic instructions from the manual and you’re done!

This plugin only works as a sidebar widget. It does not work for search boxes outside of the sidebar. No big deal. Remove your other search bar and add the widget. That’s what i did.

Note that this plugin costs $15. All of Allan’s other plugins are free, but he put some real serious time into this one. I think the price is very fair (maybe even underpriced). Everyone with a phpBay Pro website should own have this plugin.

Make sure you read the manual so you know the best way to use the content generator.

Click here for more info or to buy this plugin.

Here is an old tip that was posted by Radio on WickedFire forums a while back. It’s a great trick to get your entire phpbay auction cell (for column auctions) and row (for standard display auctions) clickable.

By default, only the item title is clickable. But by using this javascript trick we will make the whole thing a link. That should help you get more clicks on your auctions and will help those confused people who click on images or other pats of your phpBay auctions that aren’t links.

(Note: The way this wordpress theme displays code is a little messed up. In order for the code below to your you need to paste it into Notepade, and to a replace all for quotation marks. That will get rid of the “curly” quotes).

Javascript code for column phpbay auctions

All you have to do is open the file called template.column.results.html (wp-content > plugins > phpbay > templates > template.column.results.html)

Replace the entire file with this:

<td style=”word-wrap: break-word;border: 1px solid #eeeeee;font-size:12px;” onclick=”window.open(’%%link_url%%’);” onmouseover=”this.style.cursor=’pointer’; this.style.cursor=’hand’; style.backgroundColor=’%%hover%%’;” onmouseout=”style.backgroundColor=’#ffffff’;” width=”300″ align=”center” bgcolor=”#ffffff”><noscript> <a rel=”nofollow” href=”%%link_url%%” target=”_blank”></a></noscript><a rel=”nofollow” href=”%%link_url%%” target=”_blank”> <img src=”%%image%%” border=”0″ alt=”%%alt_title%%” /> <strong>%%title%%</strong> </a><noscript></noscript> %%paypal%% %%currency%%%%price_or_bin%%</td> 

Javascript code for standard phpbay auctions

All you have to do is open the file called template.ebay.results.html (wp-content > plugins > phpbay > templates > template.ebay.results.html)

Replace the entire file with this:

<table style=”font-size:12px;” onclick=”window.open(’%%link_url%%’);” onmouseover=”this.style.cursor=’pointer’; this.style.cursor=’hand’; style.backgroundColor=’%%hover%%’;” onmouseout=”style.backgroundColor=’%%row%%’” border=”0″ cellspacing=”5″ cellpadding=”5″ width=”100%” bgcolor=”%%row%%”> <tbody> <tr> <td width=”100″ align=”left”><img src=”%%image%%” border=”0″ alt=”%%alt_title%%” /></td> <td style=”word-wrap: break-word;”>        <noscript><a rel=”nofollow” href=”%%link_url%%” target=”_blank”></a></noscript><a rel=”nofollow” href=”%%link_url%%” target=”_blank”>    <strong>%%title%%</strong>   </a>    <noscript></noscript> </td> <td width=”20″ align=”right”>%%paypal%%</td> <td width=”60″ align=”right”>%%bid_or_bin%%</td> <td width=”100″ align=”right”>%%currency%%%%price_or_bin%%</td> <td width=”80″ align=”right”>%%date%%</td> </tr> </tbody></table>   

 
Then just upload your changes and you’re done! Pretty easy, right?

Check out Radio’s blog: Rule One Blog!

Time for a phpbay earnings update. August was my best month yet for phpBay sites. But it was a stressful month too. With all the craziness of EPN deactivating publishers, many were left wondering when they would get the axe. Fortunately, I haven’t gotten it yet. But i have held off on building more sites until things settle down a bit.

Another bit of news: I deactivated phpBay Pro on my Golf Balls site early last month. This site was my worst performing site and the whole EPN stir made me nervous, so i decided to focus on my two best sites. I made about $4.00 from the golf ball site before I shut it down last month. One all the commotion with SPN goes down I will reevaluate the site and consider reactivating it.

Back to my phpBay earnings. I made a total 0f $690 from my phpBay sites in August. $611 was from EPN and another $80 came from CJ links on my Fender Amps site.

Here is a screenshot of my earnings breakdown between my two sites that are up (click it to enlarge):

Also, twice last month my earnings DROPPED $30. Must have been an eBay sale that got retracted. But that could have been another $60

Another also, I’m having ankle surgery this week on Tuesday. I know i’ve been pretty crappy about posting tips, I’ve been crazy busy. But with the surgery I’ll be off work for a week, so i should have some time to post. I’ll write about an amazing new plugin from Alan Lewis that automatically creates new pages of searches people do on your site. It’s really amazing. So that will be cool. I’ll also try to write another post, assuming the Vicodin doesn’t totally impair my typing.