AWS not showing reviews

[flyingpylon]

Looks like something's up with AWS. It's not including customer reviews in a high percentage of requests right now.

If you're caching AWS data, you might want to check for the availability of reviews in the returned XML.

[Mike]

No reviews are showing up on my site, neither is the average customer rating. The price is though.

[flyingpylon]

The way AWS works is that with each request AWS compiles data from multiple sources and then returns the results. Amazon decided that if a particular resource didn't respond quickly enough, that its nodes would simply be left out of the XML response. That's why the availability node is often missing. So something must be wrong with the server that delivers customer reviews.

[MarkB]

It's probably just experiencing heavy weeks-end loads.

[incka]

Or perhaps there has been a question of copyright of the reviews.

[flyingpylon]

I doubt it has anything to do with heavy weekend loads... I've been working with AWS for about 3 months and I've never seen this happen.

I also doubt that Amazon has purposely pulled them for any kind of copyright issue. When you create a review they tell you they own the copyright to it.

It's a system problem. The AWS people know about it now and hopefully they're looking into it.

This is probably the one time I want search engines to stay away from my site.

[incka]

Use robots.txt to block them for a few days.

[Shawn]

I don't have reviews, but Chris does: http://www.discountpowertools.net/Item/B0000649EG/

[MattM]

Edit: I was for a little while, now I'm not getting the reviews.

[MattM]

Originally posted by Shawn Weeks
I don't have reviews, but Chris does: http://www.discountpowertools.net/Item/B0000649EG/ Maybe he has cached the information?

[Mike]

So does GCT13, and I think he uses the same system as Chris.

[GCT13]

There's nothing official or otherwise on the Amazon.com AWS board. (Not that I really expected anything, because websitepublisher is far more active with AWS talk than the Amazon board.)

[chromate]

They do show up occasionally and then go down again. Dan and Chris are caching, but if you go deep into their sites, a lot of the reviews don't show. Pages that haven't been cached?

[GCT13]

Pages that haven't been cached. Or whose cache has expired.

[flyingpylon]

Originally posted by GCT13
There's nothing official or otherwise on the Amazon.com AWS board. (Not that I really expected anything, because websitepublisher is far more active with AWS talk than the Amazon board.)

http://forums.prospero.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=am-assocdevxml&msg=4126.1&ctx=0

[GCT13]

Thanks pylon. I wasn't looking in the right board.

I love the Amazon Guy's "world class" remark. Who's got the 7+ figure development budget here? :rolleyes:

[flyingpylon]

Yeah, as you could see, I got a little peeved at that remark. I can't even count the number of hours I've spent developing workarounds for things in AWS that either don't work as advertised, aren't documented properly, or are just plain bad programming. AWS is cool and all, but it's still a long way from anything I would call "world class".

[chromate]

I agree. Even in the short time I've been using AWS, I've found the whole thing to be pretty "scrappy". There's so much wrong with it and most of it seems to be stupid mistakes on Amazon's part that you would have thought they would have fixed long ago. Even their message board is absolute cr*p.

I always used to be pretty impressed with Amazon. I think their business sense is good. But their technical ability sucks!

However, the extent of their database and their "pulling power" makes the whole thing worth using :)

[Best.Flash]

Originally posted by chromate
Even their message board is absolute cr*p.

Agreed.

Given the popularity of AWS on these forums I wonder if Chris would consider adding an AWS topic forum here.

[chromate]

Interesting idea. Maybe a sub-forum topic of this one? Considering the number of PM's I'm getting asking for help with various AWS projects, it would be good to direct them all to the "aws" forum instead. Not that I mind getting and answering PM's, but it would mean everyone could benefit from the responses.

...By the way PM'ers... GCT13 is the man to ask if you have any questions regarding AWS. I'm useless at it ;) ;) (sorry Dan, lol)

[MarkB]

*makes note* :p

Seeing as I got as far as AWS with SOAP as staring dumbly at the screen... :)

[GCT13]

I remember there were a huge amount of AdSense posts on website forums when it first came out. The # of AWS posts may receed in the near future (or maybe not :) )

Be on the lookout for an AWS article here on WebSitePublisher soon. I'm writing it over the weekend, it's aimed at showing what can be done with AWS, complete with a sample tutorial in REST.

[Mike]

I wondered when that was going to happen, the article that is:)

[incka]

Originally posted by GCT13
I remember there were a huge amount of AdSense posts on website forums when it first came out. The # of AWS posts may receed in the near future (or maybe not :) )

Be on the lookout for an AWS article here on WebSitePublisher soon. I'm writing it over the weekend, it's aimed at showing what can be done with AWS, complete with a sample tutorial in REST.


Can't wait! Will it be including example codes?

[GCT13]

Originally posted by incka
Can't wait! Will it be including example codes? Yeah.

[chromate]

Wohoo! Even better. Now I can just say... "read the article!" instead of directing people towards devshed.

[Mike]

When are amazon going to sort this out? I've got a bad feeling that google's gonna come along soon.

[MattM]

Still no updates on the discussion board. :(

[MattM]

I'm still not receiving them, but it appears that Mike and Shawn are.

[Mike]

Yeh, I'm getting a few, but most are still not there.

[MarkB]

I get reviews fine on my AWS site. e.g.:

http://www.buymetal.net/metal-item_id-B00005AKKD-search_type-AsinSearch-locale-us.html

[MarkB]

Hmm - except on some :) Doh'eth!

[MattM]

Ok, now I'm receiving them, seems everyone else is too.

[Mike]

Yup, I'm now receiving them. Good job as well after someone said google was doing a major update.