I recently read a post on another blog where the author has found his site was being scraped and listed on another site, for profit. If you recall, several months ago, I found that my own stuff was being scraped and posted (which has since been removed) but I think there were some key differences between the two that deserve to be noted.
His Post:
What I have found more so lately is the higher profile I become, the more people try to knock you down or steal what you have. Not surprising in …

Last week, I wrote a post about the issues with the Soft 404 header status code in BANS sites and why Google hates a soft 404. After looking into it a bit further, I want to clarify that the method outlined in the previous post returns a 404 100% of the time when a page is not found. this is Good! The bad part however, is that when you type some gibberish into the address bar, it delivers a blank page!
Just to be clear

If a user or search bot accesses a page that …

In my post yesterday about the latest ePN communications and Getting back to the basics, I mentioned that I was going to tread down a different path for my future websites, as well as converting some of my established ones. This is really no shock to any of you who are regular readers here as you have seen me start sending this message several months ago.

A quick Monday post to update everyone on last weeks activities over at eBay, as well as the final outcome and future. I have quite a bit of email to catch up on after going to the Bristol NASCAR race this weekend… so lets get started!
As we all know, eBay canned many accounts last week. After reading a new post on the ePN forums, it appears that of the 90,000 affiliates in the ePN, ebay closed only a small percentage, or 300 of them. I have also seen that after manual review, …

If you have been around BANS or this blog for any period of time, you have all come to know Rochelle, aka NeezNoodle in the BANS forums. Rochelle is also the person responsible for Niche Store Strategies and if you have visited her site in the past 2 days, you already know the crisis!
For myself, Rochelle has been a great friend and supporter of the BANS movement in that she has taken all of the rambling posts on this site and several others, and converted them into actual legible text and pictures on …

Steve, the moderator (pink) that has been addressing the affiliate issues on the ePN, replied to this post again this afternoon with more information on the recent cuts, and how to avoid them in the future. Ihave highlighted several sections of interest to BANS owners.
What does “engagement” mean?
Among other metrics, we measure the time that users spend on eBay after they come through an affiliate link, the number of pages that they view, and their buying activity after coming through the affiliate link. Hopefully this helps to further clarify what …

Do you see it as Half Full or Half Empty?

I know there is not much consoling anyone can do right for affiliates who were shut out as part of the new eBay strategy, but I am going to try anyway. Who knows, I am just as vulnerable to the next round of cuts as anyone else right?
The most important thing we must ALL do right now is look for the best way to insulate ourselves from future change at the company we have all placed alot of our unjust confidence …

Surprisingly, they give no real answers to any of us!
As we watch our friends and comrades get their incomes cut to nothing by a large corporate giant, eBay has chosen to remain behind the iron curtain and once again, avoid telling the rest of us what to do to succeed!
In a post on the ePN forums tonight, Steve, the pink that usually responds was tasked with being the messenger… Obviously, I have shortened the response.
I wanted to address all of the board posts regarding the expiration emails that were sent last …

With the recent rash of affiliate account eliminations, I have been asked how easy it is to convert a site to the PepperJam Network. Fortunately, it is a very easy process and will take less than 5 minutes per website assuming you have made no changes to your FrontControl.php file.
Edit: This update is designed to take a BANS 3.0 EPN to store to a BANS 3.0 PJN store. It WILL NOT take a BANS 2.0 to 3.0 and those updates must be performed first.
This process is the same whether you …

It looks like there has been another round of eBay Partner Network affiliates getting terminated from the program. At this point, there is no rhyme or reason behind the terminations and from those of you I have communicated with personally, it is hard to find out why your sites were dropped. I know several of you have gone above and beyond the typical point & click stores they wish to eliminate.
Edit: As much as I hate to say, this recent rash of account eliminations has struck far and wide, but is not BANS …