How Are Your AWS sites doing?

[cameron]

Just a month or two ago it almost every topic was about AWS. I never ended up making one, but would still consider adding it to existing content sites. Anyway, how are they doing for those of you who made them?

[otherground]

the two AWS sites that I have aren't doing so hot ... between 50-150 visits a day:

http://www.homeimprover.info
http://www.home-theater-systems.info

[MarkB]

Very slowly, but I haven't put much weight behind them for some time.

[Mike]

They're getting better, but they don't contribute to much of my overall earnings.

[incka]

I've got:

www.buy-jewelry.net
www.dvdplayerreviews.net
and part of my ancient china site

I'm planning:

www.cell-phone-reviews.net
www.book-reviews.ws
and one that contains everything, but isn't just an AWS site.

My earning so far:

$42.88

I haven't looked in months, it's good to see I'm making some...

4 items with a revenue of $497.88... Sounds like some jewelry or expensive dvd players to me... 2 amazon, 2 marketplace...

I'm enjoying amazon now... I can't wait to make these new sites, they don't earn anywhere near as much, but it's nice to see yourself making real business, not just CPM and CPA downloads and light leads...

How do I find out what products have been shipped?

[Mike]

They must have been expensive items. I've sold about 35 items and my earnings are just a little higher than yours...

[Chris]

I make quite a good deal. I sell 20-30 items a day.

[incka]

Made anything off your jewelry thing with blue nile?

[SWD]

yeah. those huge expensive diamonds :) lol!

[chrispian]

I'm doing pretty well with just 3 aws sites. 1 of them averages about 5 sales per day. Another does about 1-2 per week an the 3rd does about 25 sales per month.

I haven't promoted any of them yet.

[Best.Flash]

All the hard work put into my DB driven AWS sites starting to pay of - averaging about 2 sales / 100 visitors.


I make quite a good deal. I sell 20-30 items a day.

Be interested to know if thats from your AWS sites or all your sites total...

[chromate]

I'm making a few sales a day (4 or 5 non-media). However, it's not very much in the grand scale of things. They're bringing in some extra money with Adsense too, which is nice. I haven't pumped any PR into them really, so it's not surprising they're not making that much. If you think of sending PR to a site as an investment, then I think you can get a better ROI by sending it to sites other than an AWS site for the following reasons:

1) There are simply so many AWS sites out there now that you have to compete with near perfectly matched content. Therefore, it largely comes down to PR, as most people with the skill needed (COUGH!) to build an AWS site, are likely to also have SEO skills and therefore use the same good SEO tricks.

2) Getting backlinks to a pure AWS site is always going to be extremely hard. So if you don't have a reasonable amount of PR to play with in the first place, then your efforts are best spent elsewhere I think.

3) The plague of AWS sites has got so bad that they're seriously spoiling the SERPs. I expect google will be working towards some sort of solution as I speak! Therefore, your site instantly becomes time limited.

Note, that a lot of the above points refer to PURE AWS sites with no additional content. If the AWS is an add-on to an existing site then this can be more profitable and it means some of the above points will not apply, because you can drive existing traffic through your revenue generating AWS machine :)

[Chris]

All the hard work put into my DB driven AWS sites starting to pay of - averaging about 2 sales / 100 visitors.



Be interested to know if thats from your AWS sites or all your sites total...

AWS. Mostly from the ones I built around current content sites.

[Best.Flash]

Note, that a lot of the above points refer to PURE AWS sites with no additional content. If the AWS is an add-on to an existing site then this can be more profitable and it means some of the above points will not apply, because you can drive existing traffic through your revenue generating AWS machine :)

I think your right and if having an AWS site added onto your content site when (or if) Google applies a *cough* filter it wouldn't be much hastle to block the engines from indexing it.



AWS. Mostly from the ones I built around current content sites.

Good, that seems to be the best way to go - especially for someone starting out.

[incka]

I've earned $70.54 but $-25.50 has been returned and $-14.93 was damaged marketplace goods leaving me with only $30.11. I'm not very happy.

It's the 2 jewelry items that I sold that have been returned.

I've sold a few jewelry items, a few dvd players and a book on developing java applications and a dvd on breakdancing (where the heck did I promote them????)

[Anat]

So bottom line, is it worth it to start an AWS website anymore? I thought the whole point was about these sites selling well and doing so on their own (by getting good SE results) - no need for promotion.

[chromate]

Personally I wouldn't bother if you haven't already got a script (due to time). Any success the AWS site has will likely be short-lived anyway as Google takes the matter in hand.

However, if you're adding the the aws stuff onto an existing site, then that's a different matter.

[MarkB]

In the last month, I've sold more items than in the entire previous quarter.

I think if you're going to start an AWS-based site, try to think outside the square. I have plans for mine that I haven't seen done elsewhere, but it will take time to implement. It should be fun, though :)

And as others have mentioned, having a content site to feed customers to your AWS site helps a great deal!

[tomek]

Any success the AWS site has will likely be short-lived anyway as Google takes the matter in hand.

do you have anything to back up this claim? or is this just your personal opinion?

[Chris]

AWS sites are duplicate content and are clogging up the SERPs. Do you think Google is okay with that?

[nohaber]

AWS sites are duplicate content and are clogging up the SERPs. Do you think Google is okay with that? Isn't it possible to not use the default product descriptions, but write ones own? That way it won't be duplicate content.

[MarkB]

Then you may as well just use the old-fashioned linking system...

[Mike]

AWS is going well for me, earned quite a bit this quarter.

[incka]

I love AWS. I don't earn too much do it's really fun and the potential for me to earn more in future...

[Mike]

There's not much potential for you to earn in the future, seeing as google will soon find a way to stop these aws sites...

[incka]

Then I go to datafeeds for other people.

[chromate]

do you have anything to back up this claim? or is this just your personal opinion?

I don't have anything to back up the claim, apart from common sense. It's a personal opinion based on many searches I have done myself to get information on products I'm interested in buying. If amazon stocks it, all I seem to get is pages and pages of duplicate titles leading to pages of duplicate content. Obviously that's no good to anyone. So Google will undoubtedly do something about it. It's extremely unlikely that they'll just let the problem escalate.

[paul]

With AWS I am reminded of the saying "good, quick, cheap, PICK TWO!" A script built AWS site is certainly cheap and quick. Good is more work.

I think my visitors are likely candidates for buying tools. The problem with Amazon/AWS is there is to much choice. For example, in the case of cordless drills, I need to narrow the selection from 400+ to five or six. I think a page on my site with good, better, best from two manufacturers would work well. Doing that of course eliminates the "quick"

Does anyone know of a script that would let me scroll through items in a selected category (eg electric drills), pick the ones I want to include, and then write the links/pages I need?

[MarkB]

What I suggest, and which may be useless: have the entire selection available, but use a blog-powered front page to select new/favourite items to be featured. Wrap it in some nice CSS and it needn't LOOK like a blog.

[Kings]

I think if you're going to start an AWS-based site, try to think outside the square. I have plans for mine that I haven't seen done elsewhere, but it will take time to implement. It should be fun, though :)I agree with that. I think the "Whip up a copy of MrRat's script and sit back" days are soon over, and it's time to get really creative with AWS.

I'm already planning something very interesting with AWS, combining the "lastest" hot things on the internet all together. If it all works out, I'm looking at a potential moneymaker, and I doubt it'll be shortlived :cool:

[incka]

Personally I don't like Mr Rats script at all. First it's in CGI, second it makes editing the design and layout of the products really hard and third it is too easy for google to see duplicate content because all the HTML is exactly the same about from the AID.

[intelliot]

I also don't like that it's insanely popular and he's charging money for it. Then again, I haven't shipped a single item this quarter.

[freekrai]

I have a few AWS sites and they're doing ok.
I agree with Incka that they're fun to build.
I just finished changing my script to be fully template driven too so it's easier to put a template to it and get it out there.

[MarkB]

When did Mr Rat start charging for his script? Don't get it confused with Nintendo's mod_rewrite hack.

[freekrai]

http://www.mrrat.com/aws/amazon-products-feed.html
Mr. Rat's script is still free.
I think it did get confused

[intelliot]

My apologies. I'd be Nintendo's that I dislike then:)