Check Your eBay/BANS Affiliate Sites
27 January 2010
23 Comments So Far, Join In!
Not sure if you all read this already – but ePN sites using BANS, seem to be having an issue with the cloaking utility. I saw the issue posted at the ePN forum post, then over at Soggy Daves site…
The short and quick is to disable your link cloaking… AND to check ALL sites using ePN, not just BANS! On the forum post, it seems people using all kinds of redirect methods are having issues.
Mark
Previously Published Articles You May Like to Read:
- One of my BANS Sites Slapped by Google – Now What?
- eBay Partner Network (eBay Affiliate Program) Open for Enrollment
- The Tide is Shifting on BANS Sites
- One of the Best Looking BANS Sites I have ever Seen!
- How to use Kaboodle to Promote Your BANS Sites
- Don’t Use Adsense on BANS Sites
- eBay Takes Affiliate Program Inhouse – Good or Bad for Build a Niche Store?
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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.
Just been through and my PhpBay bay sites all show a blank page when they click through to ebay!
Wow, who could have thought that Ebay could find yet another way to piss off its affiliates!
Dave…
Don’t seem to see the issue on any of my sites that I checked.
I have checked most of my sites and I did not notice any problems. I never did any cloaking so that must be the issue. Thanks for the heads up…
I noticed an issue on Tuesday, but couldn’t confirm what the issue was, thought it was just a dip in earnings/traffic, but when there’s 2 bad days, there’s an issue. Saw the EPN and Bans forums. Dave-Soggy said emailed Adam and Kelvin to check the Bans side. Then I headed over here to see if there was any other news. EPN just can’t keep it simple, can they.
Mark, I was hoping you had a fix. I might use the hammer method. (Beat the crap out of it, since it doesn’t work anyways.)
@Daves at gas patio heaters – Dave, I checked a few of your pages and they seem fine.
@Bill – Yeah, same here… but I think its because I removed eBay from most sites already! :-)
This page at the GameImprovementIrons.com site shows the issue.
@Sean – The fix is…
Turn off cloaking on your BANS sites, for now.
:-)
Thanks for the heads-up Mark. I have this problem on my US BANS sites but not my UK sites. I’ve implemented a fix that seems to work for my US sites. If you want to continue to cloak your BANS links:
Back-up your item.php file before making any changes.
Go to line 61 in item.php (for BANS v3.0). It should look like this:
$url = “http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?campid=”.CJID.”&customid=$SID&toolid=10005&mpre=http%3A%2F%2Fcgi.ebay.com%2F$i$info”;
Replace that line with this:
$url = “http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?campid=”.CJID.”&toolid=10005&”.str_replace(“/item/”,”",$_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"]);
Disclaimer: This may or may not work for you. You use this fix entirely at your own risk, it hasn’t been exhaustively tested. In particular, please ensure that you are still being credited with clicks/sales from your BANS sites – I’m not responsible if people lose money.
The comments here seem to mangle the double-quotes.
If you copy and paste the line:
$url = “http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?campid=”.CJID.”&toolid=10005&”.str_replace(“/item/”,”",$_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"]);
from this site into item.php, be sure to replace any strange looking chararcters/double quotes with a regular double-quote, typed in from the keyboard. Hope that makes sense.
I noticed that my .14 cents per day went to zero. Not much, but I was really considering adding a few more sites. What a waist of effort. Now I’m forced to consider Sean’s hammer method (beat the crap out of it, since it doesn’t work anyways).
I believe that their recent changing of the guard was a warning shot.
Direct linking to products is going to be a logistical nightmare. If someone is just selling roses, there are still over 100 species, not counting the many varieties. It was a great idea to have WordPress as the front end.
56 Posts on the EPN Forum and not one update from a PINK. What service.
Definately related to BANS… my phpbay sites are doing fine. I tried Grants fix but it only ends getting redirected back to the ebay home page.
Thanks Mark for getting the word out!!
Joe
@ All –
I don’t have any BANS sites of my own to check this on… but I just checked with several others and it really seems to fix, 100% of the time, by logging into your BANS system, and just removing the “Cloak Links” box in the main setup.
Cloaking in BANS ONLY keeps honest people from seeing your CampID anyhow… nothing more, unless you are doing something special with it to track and/or redirect.
M
@Joe Wilson – I’m surprised the fix didn’t work. Is it a US BANS store?
I’ve put a zipped copy of the modified item.php file up at http://www.theartofmmo.com/downloads/bansfix/item.zip
Could you try that and let us know if it works.
Thanks Mark … was just hearing the buzz *sigh* I don’t see any problems with my other tools (other than BANS) is that correct? Thanks … *SmiLes* Suzanne
@Grant – Thanks for the find & fix Grant!!
@Suzanne Franco – I have tested several phpbay and other tools and none of the others seem to be affected. BANS only from what I can see.
Good to see ya!! :-)
Thank God I’m subscribed to your blog Mark! I just checked my links and they are NOT redirecting.
thank you!
I have at least 1 cloaked BANS site that is working fine.
The rest of my BANS sites I removed the campid anyways so who cares.
It seems to be BANS and McJiffy sites with redirect. I have close to fifty different sites using phpBay for WP, JCE-Tech, Afformatic for WP and a few others on 6 different servers and none have been affected. (Knock on wood)
One person one EPN is having a problem but it is on their end and can seem to see where they are having the problem. Says nothing has changed on their side but their forum post where they are using RSS feeds are different on three different days. One day even had the RSS link roverized through the link generator.
Thanks Mark, I only have four BANS sites, a couple worked and the other two didn’t.
Just unticked clocking and they’re all fine now.
Mark
So they don’t make you any money? No campid means EPN cannot associate that click with your account.
@Grant –
The enhanced item.php file worked for me.
Thank you,
Tom
Tao came up with a fix for those using Bans.
In index.php, you need to find this block of code:
Code:
if(($siteType == “US”) && ($cloak == “1″)){
$front->sid = str_replace(“%2B”, “+”, $front->sid);
$link[$counter] = str_replace(“http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?”, “”.URL_PATH.”/item/”, $link[$counter]);
$link[$counter] = str_replace(“&mpre=http%3A%2F%2Fcgi.ebay.com%2F”, “”, $link[$counter]);
$link[$counter] = str_replace(“QQcmdZViewItemQQssPageNameZRSS%3AB%3ASRCH%3AUS%3A101″, “”, $link[$counter]);
$link[$counter] = str_replace(“campid=”.CJID.”", “”, $link[$counter]);
$link[$counter] = str_replace(“&customid=”.$front->sid.”", “”, $link[$counter]);
$link[$counter] = str_replace(“&toolid=10005″, “”, $link[$counter]);
}
And you need to replace it with the following:
Code:
if(($siteType == “US”) && ($cloak == “1″)){
$itempos = strpos($link[$counter],”item=”);
$cloakeditem = substr($link[$counter],$itempos+5,12);
$cloakedtitle = preg_replace(“/[^a-zA-Z0-9\s]/”, “”, $title[$counter]);
$link[$counter] = URL_PATH.’/item/’.str_replace(” “,”-”,$cloakedtitle).”_W0QQitemZ”.$cloakeditem;
}
This change also needs to be done in the FrontControl.php file which you will find in the cont folder.
[...] 28 I want to thank Mark Hansen At Niche Store Builder for alerting me to this issue. But it seems like eBay has changed up something on their end that is [...]
[...] Fixed – BANS Cloaking Issue and the Fix on the BANS Forum & Daves [...]
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