Build a Niche Store EPN Update Released
At around 3pm EST, the golden email we have all waited all day for, arrived! Adam and Kelvin of Build a Niche Store released the updates with the new eBay Partner Network information in place.
EDIT: PEOPLE ARE HAVING ERRORS ON THESE UPDATES – I RECOMMEND TESTING THIS ON ONE STORE ONLY FIRST, ONCE YOU ARE SURE EVERYTHING IS RIGHT, PROCEED WITH OTHER UPDATES.
We’re happy to say that the four versions of BANS – 1.2, 1.3 (which
includes 1.3.1), 2.0 and 3.0 – that we had planned to update to
work with the new in-house eBay affiliate platform are ready for
you to download.You will need to go to the appropriate download area:
PLEASE NOTE: eBay.in is setup to work with the new platform but
eBay have yet to update the RSS feed for this country. As soon as
eBay update their RSS feed for eBay.in everything is already in
place to work correctly. If you are building eBay.in stores then
please place the update of your stores on hold until we inform you
that the eBay.in RSS feed is active.1. For all ClickBank purchasers (95% of BANS users) please enter
your ClickBank receipt number to access the download area (using
the “send receipt number to your email” if you do not have it) at
the following url:
The download link REQUIRES that you provide you ClickBank receipt, but aside from that… it is pretty straight forward.
I have requested to know the details of what is changed in the files so I can determine if it will be quicker to change the code or re-update all of my frontcontrol.php files for things like the sitemap MOD, PermaLink Mod etc. I think I will be updating 1.3 and 2.0 stores to the new 3.0 download over the course of the month… and recoding many of the MODs to be completely independent of the store files as much as possible.
Mark
Previously Published Articles You May Like to Read:
- Another Build a Niche Store Update Released
- Update Build a Niche Store 3.0 to 3.0 EPN
- Update on all Build a Niche Store Site Updates
- Build a Niche Store with a Blog Update!
- Build a Niche Store 3.0 Bug and Update
- Hold Off on BANS EPN Update for Now, or Use Great Diligence in Checking Functionality!
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I have been doing my part to "Build the Internet" since 1994, when I built my first website! Since then, I have built hundreds of niche websites for myself and many others, focused on design, applications, ecommerce, search optimization and internet marketing.
Yipee!! Can’t wait to get home from work to get crackin on updating my sites!
Mark, got a quick question… I’ve got the new software, updated my 3 sites and so far so good :)
When i go into the Ebay Partner Network and log in..
I want to make sure i have this correct..
I make a new campaign for every site i have and use that number where i use to use the CJ Campaign ID #
Sounds simple but i don’t wanna start out making mistakes !
thanks!!!!!
Question, for someone like myself who has yet to purchase BANs, but will be doing so in the next couple of weeks this should not affect me correct?
Instead of signing up through CJ how we would have in the past, I am going to sign up through the new program and crank out my sites using that ID, right?
Any help would be great!
Cheers!
JeffLef : You need to create a campaghn for every bans site as well as any other places to plan on putting Ebay Banners. Like blogs
Dead on Elijah: You should be OK if you start with a fresh copy of 3.0. Updating mods and older stores are where the issues appeer to be. I havnt had any issues yet, but I only did the updates on a few sites so far
cool, thanks Bill.. makes sense.. so i can track from my squidoo page and everything.. cool..
the Ebay Dashboard looks pretty good.. I wonder if the Tools section will be of any use.. seems like i’ve read on here that you don’t want to advertise Ebay too much on your sites and seems like that’s what most of those tools are for.. Of course i may be wrong.
@JeffLeft :
Must dont promote Ebay, but you need to provide a place for easy sign up. I read something about needing approval for custom sign up banners..
@ Mark Can we still use your sign up banners/mod ?
Off to read some more
@ Bill -
I have updated just one site so far, the getaracecar site… I DID update the banner code as well.
I guess I better go read some more also! :-( I didnt see the part about using approved banners only.
Mark
Mark,
The only error I have encountered is from the permalink mod. When I added the header code it gave me errors. The footer code works fine, though. I only re-added it to one site so I can’t say for sure it wasn’t user error.
As to custom banners I am so glad Bill said something. I hadn’t read the TOS (my bad…) and wouldn’t have known about that. I sent an email asking for approval on the banner I created.
If anyone else wants to send an email you need to click the ‘Help’ button, then the ‘User Manual.’ Find the most appropriate topic and scroll down to the bottom for a ‘contact us’ link. I chose the subject of ‘Tools’ / ‘Link Creation’ (I don’t remember the actual name of the link).
Rochelle
Doh! I spoke to soon. I’ve got errors. I’m going to put a post in the forum about it.
Rochelle
I’ve updated a few sites with no problems yet that I can tell but my sites aren’t as technically advanced as some of you old pros! I’m learning more every day with every visit to this wonderful site.
Thanks,
Jamie
I don’t know if someone already said that you will need to update the frontcontrol file with the sitemap mod after updating the files on your sites…if not the sitemap won’t work
@Rochelle
I’m sure you know the link to your signature findingtimeshares has an error. It won’t go to the site…thought I would let you know
I have 8 niche stores and I updated them all without a hitch. BUT I cannot change the CJ PID to the CampaignID on one of the sites. I have changed it on all 7 other sites – it is just the smartjewellery site that keeps defaulting back to a CJ PID.
anyone else having this problem?
sheila
I’ve just realised that the ID that is defaulting on my smartjewellery site is not the old CJ PID – I do not know what the number is. It is not one of my campaign IDs either. It is 2147483647. All my new campaign ids begin 533581….
Very peculiar.
I’ve seen that error reported on the forums. If you scroll to the bottom of the bans forums, there are forums created just for the ebay migration. I think I saw somewhere there was a fix someone figure out for this if you are comfortable manipulating a little code, or you may just want to stick with your CJ links until it gets sorted out.
Otis – The error you are seeing with my findingtimeshares link is because of the migration error. However, I’m here to report that someone in the BANS forum figured out the cause and I’m off to go fix it. If someone is having the same problem I posted the cause and fix in the forum (both here and at BANS).
Thanks for watching out for me, Otis : )
Rochelle
What version of BANS are the errors that everyone is having on??
I have not changed any of my sites to v3.0 all of mi sites are v2.0 and I have updates 4 sites with no problems.. I would just like to know what to look for…thanks
I meant to ask…..I know the EBAY logo has to change to approved ad…Can we still run any other clickbank and CJ ads on sites without problems with EBAY???
I have not heard anything otherwise Otis…
I know CJ has told people they will close their account if they run any other network ads besides CJ ads…. (not counting adsense) I dont know if they will pull the same thing with the eBay side, I guess time will tell!
Mark
“I know CJ has told people they will close their account if they run any other network ads besides CJ ads…. (not counting adsense) I don’t know if they will pull the same thing with the eBay side”
This is a whole new game.
I wonder about folks that have no idea this is happening. Lots of free advertising for ebay. There are millions of abandoned sites.
@ Bill -
I actually wondered exactly how much money eBay will GAIN back on their bottom line by the drops out there.
I mean, at 30 Million a day of sales, fees are likely in the 250,000 per day to eBay… if they can drop just 10% of affiliates through slowing sales or no referral id’s being pased correctly, they stand to add quite a bit to their bottom line!
Funny… I thought I was the only one who may have thought about the eBay benefits on this! :-)
Yesterday I upgraded 8 sites without any issues.
4 are 1.3 and 4 are 3.0 versions. (2 of the 3.0 sites I updated last week to 3.0 from 2.0 before the epn update) – I have quite a few 1.2 sites running, but I do not have a plan of action for those sites at this moment – they all need to be upgraded to 3.0 since I really never optimized them in the first place, even though they are profitable, they could be better.
I plan to upgrade my 2.0 sites to 3.0, so I do not plan on using the 2.0 EPN Update scripts. I will use the 3.0 Upgrade, then the 3.0 EPN Update – in that order.
As of this morning, all 8 sites are tracking stats at the eBay Partner Network and I did not receive any errors when making the upgrade-updates. The update probably took me about 2 hours – downloading the scripts, reading the material, figuring out my plan of action, adding the new campaigns and then doing the update itself. Going forward it should be much simpler, probably about 5 minutes per site, depending if it is a site I am going to update from 2.0 to 3.0, which I planned to anyways.
Bill – What do you mean by abandoned sites?
“I know CJ has told people they will close their account if they run any other network ads besides CJ ads…. (not counting adsense) I don’t know if they will pull the same thing with the eBay side”
Does this mean I can’t have LinkShare or ShareASale or some independent affiliate program on the same site?! If that’s the case, I sure didn’t know it.
I’ve always looked wherever I wanted for affiliate programs without regard to the network. If that were such a big deal, then getting approved by CJ merchants should be automatic … I’ve been rejected by about 1/3 of the ones I’ve applied to … which then drives me elsewhere to find another merchant.
CJ is shooting themselves in the foot if that is the case. Affiliate managers can always take their business elsewhere too.
Cindy
I think he means…
People who have sites in the eBay affiliate program that just wont do much about them, and let them expire without changing over. Part of that “80,000 daily drops” in the domain name industry.
Mark
Cindy -
I know they recently pointed out, very specifically, PepperJam network.
If you run PepperJam ads on a site with CJ ads, they will be miffed!
I do not know about others, but I am sure they exist.
Mark
Rochelle,
I have some sites that might be considered “abandoned”. Some were PPC landing pages that I don’t promote anymore. Some are just sites that I didn’t do enough with and so will let them ride till renewal date and then just not renew. And of course, if changing host companies, it would be easy to forget something you don’t work with anymore.
Any of those sites could generate traffic for eBay if they’re not updated to the EPN. Not likely to be a lot of money in any one place but if there truly are millions of them …
Mark,
I figured eBay would have to win with the change-over. If nothing else, it’s probably cheaper to hire in-house than to outsource for such a growing business. And then there are all those who don’t get their changes made properly. They should have at least a really good quarter or two before everything settles.
That new CEO (or whatever his title is) has sure made some sweeping changes!
Cindy
Nice seamless crossover. Yipee….
I had a store I bought sometime agao and never updated it, what has to be doen for the new Ebay change over…just inserting the campaign number where the CJ number was? Thanks
@ Cindy -
Instead of letting them expire… try listing them in the forum to see if someone else may want to buy them from you. At minimum, $10 is better than nothing.
I am ALWAYS on the lookout for aged (even 1 year) domains myself!
@ Raypro – You need to do the full update on your stores first, otherwise the url wont pass correctly. Go to the link in the OP and follow the BANS lead.
Mark
In the case of CJ shooting themselves in the foot and eBay benefiting – both parties must of been deliberating over this for quite sometime before coming to a decision. eBay is trying to reduce costs in order to become more effiecient and profitable – one of things most companies do when a new CEO takes over, recession periods and in face of competition – but I think we’ve bottomed in the recession (my opinion, different topic). I also try to follow the stock market – here some news: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Extra/StockScouterTop10.aspx
Consider this:
I am a 5 Star affiliate at CJ – over 95% of my earnings are from eBay. With $ XX,XXX in sales and commissions each month – take this example and multiply it by all the other affiliates – bookoo dollars. I’ll probably go down to a 2 or 3 star at CJ after migrating all my links. Poor CJ!
I’ll take all the ‘good’ abandoned sites I can get (for the right price) – monetize it and bank it. I should change my business name from The Omnicorp (All Business) to The Vulture.
@ Sean -
In regard to your earnings – I seem to recall talking to you about PPC at one point in the past.
Do you use PPC to drive traffic, and if so… How would like to write a guest post on PPC with BANS?
Thanks,
Mark
Version 3 is giving the followig error any idea? Thanks
Warning: mysql_num_rows(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /home/ronswho/public_html/cont/Mysql.php on line 146
@ Ray -
Same with the one I tried it on… I also tried unsuccessfully to restore a backup, no go there also!
In a holding pattern before I just dump it and start again…
Mark
mark I have dumped it twice and still no go
This issues has not yet been fixed? Thanks
Warning: mysql_num_rows(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /home/ronswhol/public_html/cont/Mysql.php on line 146
@Bill
Thanks Brother!
I have following this blog for months and the sense of community and betterment from each and every one of you is outstanding!
Mark, Rochelle, Bill, and the rest of you… You are all amazing.
Is there a online tutorial for this update, i can’t do it :( i’ve updated 1 of my sites, but i replaced all the files, so i had to do all the SEO over again. Is there just a simple update file(s )
@ BF -
I will be posting a video today…
Mark
@Mark
I have been trying to update several version 2, however I am not sure it is a version 2 because the update reffers to files that the store doesn’t have and they are not in the update. I get errors that reffer to example include(‘cont/cont.php’); include(‘cont/Mysql.php’); So am I dealing with a version 1.3? None of the files that are mentioned are in the exsisting stores I have but are required in the update. Hope this makes sense.
Thanks
@ Raypro – Usually when you see a cont.php error, it means the site is not communicating with your database.
Check in your file manager within cPanel if the cont.php file has your database connection info in it.
cPanel>File manager> Click on TOP of your cont/cont.php file for the site and choose edit from the right side file menu. If it does not have your database info in it, you need to update it, save it, and try the site again.
Also – in your posts… please post the url of the site with errors so I can jump over and see it for a better understanding.
Mark
@Mark
Well I am not sure if this has been addressed and if so sorry! However google now is sendding the following message when I attempt to get the new bans site verified.
Verification status: NOT VERIFIED
Last attempt Apr 7, 2008: We’ve detected that your 404 (file not found) error page returns a status of 200 (Success) in the header.
even though the html file is there I have tried putting the mEta tag that they requested in the index.php but that as you know just messes things up! HELP!
Thanks
@Raypro
Put the Meta tag between the tags in the header file of the theme you are using.
Mike
@ Raypro,
I could never get the HTML option to work so always use the meta tag. You should not be getting errors on your meta tag but it should be in the header.php file not the index.php file.. Here is what mine looks like -
meta();?>
I always put mine between the and meta();?> and it has always worked just fine for me.
One thing to note, in checking my Webmaster Tools just now, looks like you will need to make sure the meta tag stays there. I had changed the template on some of mine and that was causing a Webmaster Tools error because the meta tag could not be found. I just went back and re-verified them and everything is as it should be now.
HTH,
Cindy
Hiya
A bit off topic I know, but I am looking for the video about uploading a skeleton site on hostgator to save time on installs
Anyone point me in the right direction?
Many thanks Mark for an excellent resource. I am learning so much from you.
Best wishes
Paul
@ Raypro,
Looks like my example got jacked up. Be sure to put your meta tag just below the “head” code (which is the 3rd line). So you’ll have the DOCTYPE, the w3.org, the xmlns w3.org, the head, and then your meta tag.
Hope this ones goes through better!
Cindy
@Cindy Well it would be inappropriate to say you da man…but certainly you are da WOMAN! :0) Worked great and I thank you for the excellent advice! Also More then likely that header would be fine with most of the sites any way! For additional ones
Mark,
I finally had a chance to look at your website today and it looks great! I’m amazed at all you can do and you still spend so much time helping all of us – for free!
Sherrin
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