Portable DVD Player

[GCT13]

My first attempt to harness the power of Amazon's Web Services.

http://www.portable-dvd-player.ws

What do you think?

[chromate]

Excellent. I didn't know it could be used quite like that. Nice.

[incka]

Looks good... I would recommend a bigger logo though as it doesn't stand out...

[Chris]

Looks like a money maker. Just pump PR into that system and you're set.

[incka]

Basically every sentence has the words portable DVD player in them. Good way to target the keyword ;)

[incka]

If you make lots of money from it please tell us so we can set up competing site :p :D

[chromate]

Just pick a product range where you don't have to compete with your fellow WebsitePublisher.net'ers ;)

[GCT13]

Thanks for the feedback! I tried to optimize! optimize! optimize! using everything I've learned from this forum + site.

I'm thinking about adding recurring articles about online dvd rentals and the dvd format in general. There's a ton of related news stories about those subjects these days.

I'll let you know how it goes after six month or so. Gotta work on the PR pumpage!

[incka]

I've got one. Segways.

[Chris]

Amazon has a $10 limit on commissions -- Segways aren't going to make you as much as you think.

[incka]

$10 limit. That sucks!

[incka]

Is there any other people with an affiliate program selling them?

[chromate]

I shouldn't think so. It seems to be quite exclusive as far as retailers in general go, in fact.

[incka]

Tar Nation!

[Shawn]

I have absolutely -no- idea how to do this.

http://www.portable-dvd-player.ws/Details/B0000C83IH/Initial-IDM-1731-Portable-DVD-Playe/

I downloaded the developer's pack, but I am completely lost. Can you provide a walk-through on what you did to create that page?

[kdb003]

i was wondering how you store/cache the information?

do you store the reviews in a database after grabbing them from amazon?

did you work off a script?

@shawn
i would try working off a free script first like this one:
http://www.chipdir.nl/amazon/
the first script is simple is simple and easy to change and manipulate for your own uses. thats what i used to power this page:
http://kdb003.neominds.net/bookclub/
which isnt done yet

[GCT13]

Shawn, the XML Scratch Pad is your friend. (Found under Tools on the Web Services homepage.)

Get yourself a developer's token and play with the scratch pad. Don't bother with the developer's pack until you have some firm understanding about which variables you can play with in the XML call to Amazon.

It's all about the XML call to Amazon.

This is a books search for "Frank Herbert" sorted by sales:
http://xml.amazon.com/onca/xml3?t=portabledvd04-20&dev-t=D2WQPTG51EFMNF&KeywordSearch=frank%20herbert&mode=books&sort=+salesrank&offer=All&type=lite&page=&f=xml
(the link should display the contents of an XML file for those of you IE)

Now you gotta figure out how you wanna parse that sucker to extract that data, and setup a caching mechanism. I don't use a database to cache but some people do. I found a cache script at the PHP Pear site.

As kdb003 has found, there are a bunch of free AWS scripts out there. Check out the AWS forums as well.

I have found AWS is still a work in progress on Amazon's end. Massive downtime is not unheard of. Prepare that error handling! :D

Good luck!

[GCT13]

If you plan on displaying an extra-large number of products, say 500 or more (this could occur if users can perform a search on a category), then consider your drive space for caching.

Already, I've cached almost 100MB of AWS data. I don't know if that number will continue to grow or stabilize.

It could be an issue for those who have only a few hundred megs in their hosting plan.

'night

[Chris]

You could probably take that script you made and make it portable and sell it.

If all I had to do was plug an Amazon category or ASINs into it I'd buy it I'm sure.

[GCT13]

Really.

[incka]

PCPlus had a tutorial on making a script like this.

[ozgression]

I'd buy it too...
________
how to roll a blunt (http://howtorollablunt.net/)

[chromate]

I wouldn't! :) Mainly because I'm poor and it's not hard to write yourself anyway.

[Chris]

I have more money than time right now -- which is why I'd buy it rather than try coding it.

[s2kinteg916]

i have the opposite more time and less money... i would buy it three

[GCT13]

Hi, all.

PM me if you're interested.

[Shawn]

I PMed :)

[Chris]

Why PM?

[GCT13]

Or just say it out loud here! :D

[Chris]

Well, I'm interested.

[incka]

How are you going to tranfer money? Paypal? And how much are you charging? I might be intested for one of the sites in currently in my possible ideas list...

[GCT13]

Hi Incka. It's a specialized solution tailored to each customer's requirements, so it all depends on what you need.

[emke]

I might be interested as well.

[GCT13]

Hi all,

For all interested parties please shoot me an email:

d_r_obrien at yahoo com

Thanks!

Dan

[ozgression]

Originally posted by Chris
I have more money than time right now -- which is why I'd buy it rather than try coding it.

Me too... GCT13 I have emailed you.
________
discuss vaporizers (http://vaporizer.org/forum/vapor-lounge/)

[Mike]

hows this going GCT13?

[GCT13]

Thanks for asking.

Portable DVD Player is still in its infancy. No one has used the "Send to a Friend" function, but I was excited to get my first newsletter subscriber this week.

Traffic is microscopic, maybe 150 page views per day. Most of my traffic is coming from this forum, Sitepoint, and a Yahoo listing. I've gotten a little love from Gigablast (http://www.gigablast.com), my new favorite search engine, where my rankings are astounding. Unfortunately, Gigablast gets only 250,000 queries per day, compared to Google's estimated 200+ million per day.

Speaking of Google, I have yet to receive deep penetrative love from Googlebot. I think I have only 3 or 4 pages indexed in "The Mothership".

When I get some time, there is still much work to be done. I'm going to add a few pieces of original content about the dvd format and online dvd rentals and get those suckers in a directory listing or two. DVD movies will get some genre listings, and dvd players will get listings by manufacturer.

I'm anxious to see how the site does in SERPs after it gets a full-body indexed massage, followed by a Google Dance. I'm hoping for a happy ending.

[Mike]

Thanks for the update...

It'll be interesting when google comes into play:)

[GCT13]

I'm back from a Bobby B's beer bash, and Google has somewhat fondled me. Portable DVD Player is no longer a PR0. It has jumped to a PR3.

On a realted note, Bobby B's Sports Guide has jumped from a PR4 to a PR5.

:)

[Mike]

A question for anyone...

Is google supposedly going to try and penalize sites with amazon feeds etc?

Thanks,
Mike:)

[incka]

I hope not... But why would they?

[emke]

Originally posted by Mike
A question for anyone...

Is google supposedly going to try and penalize sites with amazon feeds etc?

Thanks,
Mike:)

Where did you hear that?

[Percept]

I read something about it on webmasterworld. It was just an idea one of the users their had but alltough I don't think it would be really penalizing the end result could be the same.

The way I see it, Google will keep promoting Froogle so all product-sellers put up a feed for Froogle. Once a great deal of the sellers have done this , there's no use in putting seller-websites in the regular google SERP's.

Ok no problem since we will be in the Froogle listing , right ? Wrong , guess who will be dominating the Froogle Serps ... Amazon, Bestbuy, ...

I hope this makes any sence and if it doesn't tell me why not. I've read an incredible amount of SEO stuff lately, so much actually that I'm seriously confused.

[Mike]

I've heard that they're trying to cut out all the affiliate sites. Then again, it could just be another rumour:rolleyes:

[GCT13]

Originally posted by Mike
Is google supposedly going to try and penalize sites with amazon feeds etc?

I wouldn't lose too much sleep over that rumor :)

[GCT13]

Hypothetically, if Google gave a penalty to affiliate sites, they might also go the extra step and not count (or de-emphasize) affiliate links.

So, hypothetically, "affiliate" sites wouldn't show up as prominently in the SERPs, and internet-wide affiliate revenue would go down. Affiliate links wouldn't count as much (or at all), big sites with the affiliate programs would loose inbound link numbers, and consequently their pages wouldn't show up as well on SERPs. So the big sites with affiliate/associate programs would loose revenue.

Now why would Google want to go to war with Amazon and the other affiliate networks?

And how would a search engine bot define what is and is not an "affiliate" site?

[chromate]

Originally posted by GCT13
And how would a search engine bot define what is and is not an "affiliate" site?

This is the reason why I don't think Google would do this. At least, I hope they don't having just built 3 Amazon affiliate sites.

[GCT13]

I was wondering when chromate would amplify the signature line. Very nice!

[chromate]

Cheers, I plan to give each of the sites a separate design (eventually) and I've gotta build a new user friendly pagination thing. I also have a problem with Amazon returning stock that has been discontinued. No use to anybody. I would like to filter them out, but don't know how yet.

[Mike]

Those are real nice sites chromate, love the designs! You base it on sitepoint at all?

[GCT13]

Originally posted by chromate
I also have a problem with Amazon returning stock that has been discontinued. No use to anybody. I would like to filter them out, but don't know how yet.
I have an idea on this issue, but it would give an uneven number of results back from a list (like displaying only 7 or 8 items) depending if a result was filtered out.

If it's discontinued, it says so in "Availability", right?

[chromate]

Mike, you think they're similar? I suppose they are quite like sitepoint. I hadn't based it on sitepoint, no. I hadn't even thought about it until you bought it up :)

I was just aiming to pick "generic" colours that I could use with a load of sites temporarily. I originally started doing a PDA reviews type site, so the colours are a little "techy" but then I decided against that idea because the competition with keywords that have anything to do with PDA's is too strong. I thought the kitchen stuff would compliment the carbohydrate counter / weight loss side of things. Once you have the script written, they're so easy to create. I'll just see how things go with them.

[chromate]

Originally posted by GCT13
I have an idea on this issue, but it would give an uneven number of results back from a list (like displaying only 7 or 8 items) depending if a result was filtered out.

If it's discontinued, it says so in "Availability", right?

Yeah, I can knock them out of the results that are displayed to the user by checking each record returned, then if it's discontinued, I don't display it. But like you say, the pages then have different numbers of items each time. Some of the pages sometimes don't have ANY items, if I'm filtering. So I had to get rid of *my* own filter. I was just wondering if there was a AWS filter that would do it. Haven't had time to really look into it yet and on the face if it, it seems there isn't.

[GCT13]

Originally posted by chromate
Some of the pages sometimes don't have ANY items, if I'm filtering. So I had to get rid of *my* own filter.
Didn't realize it was that bad for some categories. That's bad. :confused:

[Mike]

Originally posted by chromate
Mike, you think they're similar? I suppose they are quite like sitepoint. I hadn't based it on sitepoint, no. I hadn't even thought about it until you bought it up :)

I was just aiming to pick "generic" colours that I could use with a load of sites temporarily. I originally started doing a PDA reviews type site, so the colours are a little "techy" but then I decided against that idea because the competition with keywords that have anything to do with PDA's is too strong. I thought the kitchen stuff would compliment the carbohydrate counter / weight loss side of things. Once you have the script written, they're so easy to create. I'll just see how things go with them.

Yeah, they are really easy to create. I'm hoping to launch one in January. The script is written, just have to do a design:)

[chromate]

what category are you doing? I figure WP can get the whole of Amazon covered and then we can compare notes :)

[incka]

WO WO WO... How do you create one of these sites?

[chromate]

You need to know a scripting language and then look in Amazon's associate section for Amazon Web Services. You can then download a kit with examples etc.

[Mike]

Originally posted by chromate
what category are you doing? I figure WP can get the whole of Amazon covered and then we can compare notes :)

Can't tell you at the moment:) Hopefully, I should get it done in the first week of January.

[incka]

Originally posted by chromate
You need to know a scripting language and then look in Amazon's associate section for Amazon Web Services. You can then download a kit with examples etc.


Will PHP do?

[GCT13]

Yes, that's what I use.

[Mike]

My site will as well.

[incka]

And will the pages be search engine friendly?

[GCT13]

You better believe it.

SE-friendly URLs is independant of PHP (or whatever scripting language you're using), it's about working with the .htaccess file if you're running under an Apache server.

[Mike]

The amazon script I'm using is in PHP, so the pages will be easy to be made into se friendly ones.

[chromate]

Yep, PHP's fine.

[incka]

Sean's Lingerie Shop... Perhaps I could actually stock the stuff myself, I found 12 sets of lace Lingerie for £5, unworn, brand new, on ebay wholesale...