Changing from BANS to PhpBay – Method 1
A few days ago, I mentioned that I get alot of questions about converting a BANS site to phpBay. This post is for those of you who have decided they do want to change from a straight up BANS site to phpBay, or ANY other type of site for that matter.
It should come as no surprise that there is a long and short way to do this, the method you choose is up to YOU and what your site traffic is telling you. The first method I am going to discuss is the easiest and likely the most common! In my next post… I will look at all the effort that MUST go into rebuilding ANY type of website, when you rely on the traffic for your income!
The Short Way – Just Say Screw It!
In the majority of sites I have converted from BANS to anything else… I have used the Screw-It rule! You know… when you just say screw it, move all the BANS files and start over from scratch! You will hear many site builders at their pulpit saying… NEVER do this… but lets face it, if you are changing, it’s for a reason! Be real to yourself… it will save you time! In a very direct way… Time = Money, so wasted time = wasted money!
You are NOT going to abandon everything on your site… but there is truly no need to go through the effort to rebuild everything to handle your traffic from day 1. You can use your 404 log over time to take care of the items that NEED to be taken care of, as they occur!
When to Say Screw It!
- If a site has little to no traffic.
- If you have little to no unique content.
- If a site earns little to no revenue.
- If the majority of your traffic lands on your home page.
- If a “Busy Day” on your site means it got 100 pageviews.
Seriously… WHY do you want to waste ANY time on a site that is already worthless? Scrap it and start again! Don’t worry about how to redirect traffic coming from previously indexed pages etc, they obviously aren’t doing you much good!
If you are going to use WordPress on the new site, just make a good 404 page to help the visitors coming from previously indexed pages find what they may need!
I would NEVER say Screw-It to a site I was counting on for visitor traffic and revenue! I ONLY use this method for worthless efforts that simply aren’t providing me any value as they are.
Preparing to Say Screw It!
The really good part about this type of conversion, is that there is very little prep work needed!
- If you have unique content – Save it all in notepad or some other text editor! Copy / Paste / Save. (You can also just leave your database intact, so its there for the future)
- Use a site like linkdiagnosis.com to get a list of all the pages out there that link to your site. You can use the list to create 301’s on the new site to preserve any authority you may have.
Done…
Dealing with The Files
Even though you are scrapping whats there and rebuilding from the ground up, you may just want to save your files… be it for sentimental reason or whatever! The easiest way to handle this… is to simply rename your site folder to something else, and recreate it as an empty folder, to house your NEW website!
- Make yourself a note of the current live site folder name.
- Click on top of your site folder (The root of your website) and choose rename.
- Add a hyphen and the word “old” to the existing folder name. Ex: /website/ now becomes /website-old/
- Add a new folder in the same position as your original, with the same name as your original website.
Now you have a full backup of all your files, as well as a brand new empty folder to build a new site inside of!
Using 301’s to Deal with Stray Visitors
Now that you rebuilt your site… how do you deal with those straggler visitors that show up at the old URL’s? Grab a redirection plugin for WordPress or write the 301’s to your htaccess manually… and redirect those visitors and links to the new pages you created for the same targets!
What If I have a Higher Traffic Site?
In my next post about moving BANS.. I will look at all the detail that goes into moving a highly indexed site with alot of traffic! It’s NOT an easy task and you definitely don’t just want to jump into it without planning!
Previously Published Articles You May Like to Read:
- Converting from BANS to phpBay, Method 2
- Should you Convert a BANS Site to a PhpBay Site?
- phpBay Search2Post and Other Goodies like phpOStock!
- Converting an Existing BANS ePN Site to a BANS PepperJam Site
- 25 Things about Me – and a Cool phpBay Discount Code!
- BANS – Blog Template Pack! BANS Flex Theme
- Moving BANS Off the Root of the Domain
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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.
Good post. I’ve recently started moving all my BANS sites to WP/PHPBay sites. And even though there is a lot of work involved, it has proved to be worth it so far. I just finished a site that was only getting traffic through Yahoo/MSN as a BANS site, but within a few days after converting to WP, it is now number one in Google on the primary keywords!
I found that if I paid attention to the category and page name urls, I don’t seem to have a problem with 404 errors. The WP urls match up nicely with how I setup the old BANS site. i.e. each old BANS category = new Wordpress page with PHPBay.
Also, great tip about http://www.linkdiagnosis.com.
I am new to this blog, it looks very interesting.
Glad to see this series taking off Mark!
I have indeed got several sites that fall into this “screw it” category, and will probably follow these steps!
Simply rebuild the site, and use a good 404 page to make sure the traffic continues to convert.
My only big concern still is this:
One site in particular I have gets very good traffic from Yahoo.
If all of a sudden all of my files and URLs are completely changed, won’t I lose out on all that traffic?
Perhaps this is where my understanding of 301 redirects and such is lacking.
I want to make sure I will continue to rank well and get organic results WHILE still converting the site completely.
-Excited for more to come
@ Tyler –
In ref to the site getting alot of traffic… the next post about this may be better for you if the site is busy. This one is about slower, non-performing sites where you really have nothing to lose!
IF most of the traffic is landing on your homepage… you will lose nothing, since you will still have a homepage.
I will get into the 301’s etc in the next one… but basically, you just 301 the old link, to the new one, in the first line of your htaccess, or by using a wordpress plugin.
M
Im definately interested in your method for changing a decent traffic bans site to phpbay. I just find I use wordpress alot and that Google only like my wordpress pages! Why should I keep up with my BANS stuff? I think I feel a blog post coming on…
@Mark -
If I 301 the “old” links that are no longer actually content-laden pages anymore to the “new” homepage or a new content page…
Will Yahoo/MSN/Google still keep that page ranked? Even though it technically no longer exists and now only serves to re-direct traffic to my new page?
This is what I am not fully understanding, and what makes me reluctant to delete my high (for me at least) traffic entry pages.
But if those deleted entry pages will stay indexed in the SE’s even though they don’t EXIST anymore due to the 301– then I suppose this is all a no brainer!
@ Tyler –
I understand the apprehension for sure…
The way a 301 works… is by telling the “browser” (Whether that’s a search bot, or firefox, or IE, etc) the page is permanently moved to a new location.
From the visitor standpoint, its seamless… and they never know.
Search engines will eventually drop the old page from their index and show the new page link instead. ANY pagerank, or authority, that the old page had should also be migrated to the new page as well.
If search engines are the ONLY place the links exist… you can watch your site log and eventually see the 301 hits disappear. They can eventually be removed from the htaccess after several months.
If however, you have inbound links to the same files… you will want to leave the 301’s in place, since those sites are not likely to change their links unless you ask. The 301’s are the easiest way to handle them.
M
@Mark: OK that makes sense!
What about this scenario.
Lets say that OLDPAGE1 (which gets lots of organic SE traffic) is deleted to make way for NEWSITE1.
A 301 redirect is placed from OLDPAGE1 to NEWSITE1, even though OLDPAGE1 was an original article written for the niche about “Selecting the perfect fuzzy widget for your dog” and NEWSITE1 is simply “Fuzzy Widgets”.
Does the PR and Authority still transfer from OLDPAGE1 (Which was a content-heavy article) to NEWSITE1 (Which is not an article, but the homepage for your new niche site)
OR is it best to simply re-direct OLD indexed articles in the SE’s to NEW articles on your site, even if the titles and content are not identical to what the user clicked in the SE?
I hope this makes sense, your last explanation really helped.
I’m probably out in left field with keeping up with BANS but I have a few and not making anything but not doing anything either. I haven’t got any emails from BANS in a long time. Is BANS dead? Is there going to be further development or is it just what it is and that is it??
curious,
Jonathan
@ Jonathan –
I have not seen, nor heard, from any of the key players (Kelvin or Adam) in BANS since last year…
The proggy still works well – but I think the dev side is done. They have not posted on the forum in ages (6+ months)
M
I have quite a few BANS sites, only a few of which are producing revenue from Yahoo & MSN. A number of them used to produce quite a nice income, but then I noticed a big drop-off in traffic and revenue. Most of them were never ranked by Google, although they were (and still are) indexed. I had steadily added content and backlinks, but the more I added the worse my sites did.
I’m baffled about what happened and what it would take to fix things. Since most of them are still indexed, I assume that’s a good sign… but I’ve gotten frustrated because I don’t know what to do to get them back on track. Is it worth trying phpBay??
@ Alice –
The GrillAuctions site was the same way… It was still indexed, but the traffic from G dropped to almost none! G traffic dropped to less than 5% of the total site traffic and Yahoo and MSN were the predominant referrers.
I have seen the same trend on several of my own and in order to turn them around, I simply rebuilt them… dropped the “content to listings” ratio to (+/-)250/4 … for every 250 words of my own unique content (Give or take) I would list only 4 auction listings on any given page!
The sites have come right back into good rankings and get quite a bit of G traffic again, within just 4-6 weeks… G is the #1 referrer again!
Mark
@ Alice –
BTW – I did not always put phpbay on them, I just reused the same BANS install… and reduced the listings.
Shut off ALL pages (Made inactive) and only brought them back 1 by 1, when I had the sufficient content to listing ratio.
What I’d like to know is why there are so many storefront sites out there, with only a small amount of content, that rank highly in Google. It seems that they’re held to a different standard than blog-based sites (with or without BANS, phpBay etc). When I do a search to see what the top-rated sites in my niches are, I find these sites dominating the first several pages.
These are not junky sites, they’re quite good (most of them). But they are clearly commercial sites, storefronts, built to sell things to people and not provide a “community” type setting for buyers. How come they haven’t been de-indexed or downgraded??
And more importantly, how can I get my sites to be viewed by G in the same way? That is, as unabashed commercial sites without the need for this endless content building? Based on my experiences, I’m just not convinced that every site Google ranks well is packed with content. A lot just have cool stuff to sell. Any ideas on why these sites rank well, while more content-oriented ones don’t??
@ Alice -
Please don’t confuse an ecommerce site with an affiliate site… They actually sell a product, whether their own or not.
I can almost promise you… if you remove ALL of your affiliate links and build product pages or items you actually sell to the visitors. Your own traffic will change dramatically!
Completely different animal!! Very different.
Mark
Mark,
yes, I understand that these are different. But I’m curious about why G beats up on affiliate sites (these are just another form of e-commerce) for being “thin” but lets storefront/e-commerce sites get away with it. I don’t get it.
@ Alice –
Affiliate sites are not anything like an ecommerce site…
In effect, they are more like a search engine, where all they do is tell people WHERE they can buy stuff, and send them on their way.
From phone numbers, to physical addresses, return policies, and people you can actually talk to and trust with SSL certificates, etc, e-commerce is a whole different type of website.
On the ecom sites I manage, there is very little blogging, social networking, etc… and the focus is much more in tune with advertising from vendors, testimonials from customers, deals, sales, newsletters etc.
The biggest difference are the tangible assets.
Affiliate sites guide the visitors to a product, the ecommerce sites actually provide and fulfill the product orders.
M
Mark,
I still think that selling is selling, whether it’s directly or via an affiliate site. And I think most e-commerce sites nowadays are a combination – if they’re monetized, they are also acting as an affiliate. So why they have it easier than straight affiliate sites is still a mystery to me.
And there are some older affiliate sites that don’t have a lot of content but rank well in G. I haven’t been able to figure out why.
I understand where you are coming from Alice… but truly, are you selling anything on your affiliate sites?
Do you know your buyers names? Keep their info, market to them, process their credit cards or paypal charges?
Affiliate sites really do nothing other than teach people about, and tell people where they can buy stuff…
ECom actually handle the customer and the transactions, making affiliates true middlemen sites.
M
Mark,
Again, I do understand the difference between an affiliate and a direct sales site. I don’t know who buys stuff off my site or anything else about them. So what? I’m just trying to understand G’s logic behind their rankings of these two types of selling sites. Why do they believe that a lot of content, customer info, etc is required for affiliate sites (although not all off them) but not for ecommerce sites?
it seems to me that you can have a thin, spammy ecommerce site just as easily as a thin, spammy affiliate site. Why do they let the ecommerce sites get away it, but hammer the affiliates? Why is G viewing these sites so differently, when both are trying to accomplish the same thing, i.e., sell stuff to people?
@ Alice –
Let me try it this way…
If you leave your home to buy as coffee pot… would you go straight to Walmart, or would you go to some street corner, and ask someone where you could go to buy a coffee pot?
The ecommerce sites don’t have to have loads of related content (Although is helps a TON) since they are actually a vendor, selling a tangible product.
There is nothing tangible on an affiliate site – other than the INFO they write.
You DO NOT sell anything on an affiliate site!
Thanks for explaining how you rebooted some of your sites, Mark – the same thing has happened to me recently. I’ve only got 4 or 5 BANS sites that were making me over $200 a month total and this has dropped to $40! I needed to do something and you’ve given me a plan!
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