Internet Profits Blog

There are many ’signals’ Google uses to rank your web pages – one of which is how often your page is bookmarked. Not only does a bookmark help your rankings, but it helps increase traffic by making it easier for someone to remember and find your website.

But hardly anyone helps their users bookmark their website.

This is a really easy fix to make.

Here is some easy to use JavaScript to insert into your pages to promote the bookmarking of your site.

You can see the implementation and how it works at the bottom of this Vandor Cookie Jar website.

Simple. Insert the JavaScript into your web page and that’s it.

Of course you can offer more options, such as social bookmarking, Facebook likes, and so on. But those are all third party sites. With a bookmark it is in the user’s web browser and always accessible no matter what website they are visiting.

eBay has made some changes to its affiliate feed to be implemented before the 2011 Christmas season. Here are the changes in the phpBay files to be made for each phpBay install:

config.php

There are 3 changes that can quickly be made:

1. Under the Preferred Country Section all of the country codes need to be updated. The entire section needs to be replaced.

2. Under Advanced Options the Default Sort Order has changed. Instead of a ‘0′ there are now various words to be used to select the sorting of the eBay listings. They are listed in the new file.

3. There is also now an option to show items only from top rated sellers. You may not need this in your config.php file if you do not care about this option. Most users won’t.

ebay.php

Many, many changes in this file. Which is a major pain in the butt if you are running a customized version of the script.

My best recommendation is to take the new ebay.php file and rework into the the customizations. Adding the customizations back in from the phpbay customization page takes only a minute.

auction.php

Again, 3 changes to be made.

1. Since the country codes in config.php have changed, near the end of auction.php those codes similarly need to be changed. You will want to swap out the entire ebayCountries array to have the new codes.

2. Then, at the very end where there is a ’switch’ command with various “cases” – those are all related to the country codes so they also need to be replaced with the coding. The new coding is actually a lot simpler.

3. The final url variable starting $url, almost at the very end of the file, needs to be updated with the new code.

Reasons why you do not simply want to copy over the new auction.php file:

- Custom IP blocks
- Custom page redirects for bad IPs/bots
- Custom coding for using QCT to track clicks

Other Files

New versions of these files are also included in the new download package:

forms/form.sort_by.php
includes/combo.php; country.php, geo.php, geoip.dat, geoop.inc
templates/template.column.results.html

Misc

The price provided by eBay includes the dollar sign. So if your template has $ followed by the price code, delete the “$” because otherwise the prices for your listings will appear as $$.

eBay defaults to showing listings sorted by a Best Match. The phpBay config file default is to sort by the soonest ending time. Stick with the default to help avoid the listings matching the order of the eBay listings. Also known as duplicate content.

The new phpBay also seems to be showing 10 listings per page, even if you change the number in the config.php file. Changing the number shown in the web page call to the script still works. So for customization that is now the place to put a randomizing factor for the number of listings shown.

Ever had your emails blocked and blacklisted through no fault of your own?

That’s the problem with using a hosted, third party autoresponder like Aweber.

As this is written, Aweber is almost completely blocked from major email providers …

Yahoo
Gmail
Hotmail

But NOT one word to Aweber’s customers letting them know of the blocks.

This reminds me of when Aweber’s service was hacked and emails were stolen – no notifications were sent by Aweber to it’s customers.

A self-hosted autoresponder script like this one is what you need to have as a backup.

If anything else, as a backup and alternative to Aweber.

When you read the following, remember that you are PAYING Aweber for each subscriber on your list, monthly, even if AWeber is blocked and your emails are not being delivered.

Recent comments about AWeber being blocked:

“[B]asically Yahoo has closed their door to us, but we are working on it. We send the emails out, but Yahoo is blocking them.”

– As reported from an AWeber Customer Representative

“Here’s the REAL deal…

Aweber is currently having TONS of issues with their mail servers being blacklisted and this has been going on for whole month…

Recently – a live chat with an Aweber rep revealed the Aweber mail servers used to send your messages…

After they gave these – a quick blacklist check showed that ALL BUT ONE of the servers were blacklisted…”

– Coby, AWeber Customer

“Yes, Aweber must be having problems. I have a bad problem with getting yahoo people to change from unconfirmed to confirmed on my list. I just created a few yahoo accounts, and tested them. I also had friends with yahoo accounts test my optin also. Nothing was delivered.

My spam scores according to Aweber are 0 for each message.”

– ‘robsterhews’, AWeber Customer

“I don’t think this is restricted to Yahoo either. I’ve just logged in to my Aweber account and every single person who has not confirmed are Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail – nothing else.”

– Annie Pottinger, AWeber Customer

“Just exported my lists from Aweber then cancelled after five years of continued use. I’m going to start sending the emails from my dedicated server …”

– Kane Insurance

“This is one of the downsides to using a third-party autoresponder service to send out your e-mails.

If their servers get blacklisted (for whatever reason) your e-mail deliverability plummets too – even if you did nothing wrong.

Your deliverability is dependent upon what other list owners who are sending from the same IP block are doing….

For me, going the self-hosted route has little to do with pricing at all.

It comes down to one thing: CONTROL.

With my own self-hosted solution, I’m in control of the most important asset in my business – my list.”

– Shaun Oreilly

Keep in mind that email blocks come and go. Hopefully, this will go

The main point is, while Aweber can be a great service it is not necessarily the best service at all times, for every purpose, for any business.

Why be locked into one provider that controls your ability to communicate with your customers and subscribers?

At a minimum, get a cheap autoresponder script and you install and can use as an Aweber alternative when the need arises.

Insurance is always important.