Web Apps

[StuartDykes]

Just wondering as I often do...

How difficult is it to build a website like moneysupermarket, kelkoo, or holiday websites where there are loads of different product all compared.

I presume this is an automated process. How does it work with constantly updated deals ect? Is it expensive to prepare? What are the advantages/drawbacks?

regards

Stuart

[Chris]

Fairly difficult.

Well... once you have the product database it is easy, but compiling a product database and keeping it updated is the difficult part.

[Chris]

... I've done something like it, and understand this, like for instance the walmart database measures in the gigabytes, trying to do a couple dozen merchants was just about breaking mysql, even on a dedicated server.

So, it isn't just programming knowledge, you need infrastructure.

[StuartDykes]

ah well, just wondering.

Gigabytes:eek: oh dear that sounds a bit tedious to trawl through and update.

Thanks

[Chris]

It has gotten easier though.

Linkshare for instance now has a rudimentary API for accessing merchant data, you don't need to maintain your own database.

Amazon has had one for years.