http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...signal+booster
I was just searching for a wireless g signal booster, check how many AWS results there are.
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http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...signal+booster
I was just searching for a wireless g signal booster, check how many AWS results there are.
Yup. Makes you wonder where this AWS thing is going to end up, doesn't it?
As more and more AWS sites go live and cover nearly all of Amazon's product categories, Amazon may be looking at a future when the majority of its sales do not originate from its homepage.
I think it's only people from these forums who are starting amazon sites though. Like, I can't really think of many other people doing it.
It's good that it works though.
That doesn't necessarily translate into revenue though. That only means that people are getting it indexed. In the end, it all depends on the cash. That's why I was excited to read this thread, I thought you were going to post that you made x dollars in the first week of opening yours, etc etc. Oh well. :\
I'm sure search engines are going to be the main referrer for most, so without them there will be no revenue lo0ol.
But it also depends a great deal on how well they convert. I'm not arguing that they'll receive a lot of traffic from SE. I can throw 100k uniques at a site and still sell nothing if it can't convert well.
I think it's only going to get worse. Particularly in the electronic categories. That's partly why I chose to do kitchen stuff, I thought there would be less competition form other AWS sites. :) At least for now.
I think the successful AWS sites will be ones stricly focussed on a topic, with the backing (and links) of a content site.
But then, what do I know? LOL
Well the sites on the search I linked too are horrible, badly designed, and I mean really badly. All cluttered and ugly. Since most of them share this trait it looks like it could be one person with multiple domains. In anycase they probably do not convert that well.
An exception would be 'Nintendo''s sites, which are pretty much all-round eyesores, yet he makes thousands per quarter. (not enough for one to live on, but more than most of us are managing - except for the obvious;)).
I think he also has the advantage of traffic being pumped into them.
His are simplistic in design, but not ugly, and not so poorly done as to almost be unusable.
I beg to differ - on his games cheat site, for Xmas, he had a midi playing in the background and tacky xmas-style gifs as 'decorations'.
But I'm just being picky...
Really? Haha. Oh dear. Oh well, credit to him. Like you say, at least he's making money off them. And I think he is making enough to live on. Didn't he make $7k last quarter? I could live on that easy, even after conversion into the great british pound :)
I think the thing is with nintendo's sites are that they have just so much stuff indexed by google. He must get so much traffic that even minimal conversion rates could result in decent revenue.
Dan (GCT13), You've probably had your site open now for the longest out of all of us. How's it going? You haven't mentioned it for ages! Is it working out? :)
Well I'm using AWS to pull data about products into a database...it makes updating links about products on my site so much easier.
As for an AWS only site...is it still possible for these to succeed at all? I've seen hundreds of them and I know that I wouldn't buy from one as the design is usually very amateurish - no offence! :)
Design and that "professional" something is what I look for when purchasing. Not a white page full of blue underlined links :)
Yeah. It depends how it's presented and organised. I think accessibility is the key. If the information the user's looking for (reviews or whatever) is clearly and easily accessible, then I don't think they're going to be too concerned about the actual aesthetics of the site when considering a purchase. After all, the big button says "buy from amazon.com" so it's quite clear they're not buying from the actual AWS site anyway.
However, a professional and clear look is important just to keep the user's interest and to prevent them from thinking "Ah, it's just another one of those sites!" and going elsewhere. It also needs to convince the user that the content presented is actually credible and not just junk.
For all of Amazon's virtues, personally speaking, I don't actually think accessibility is one. I find the Amazon site a bit cluttered with "stuff going on all over the place". The one thing an AWS site can provide over Amazon is the flexibility to provide a more focused environment in which to present information and products.
Have you had any sales yet Chris?
And if you don't make money from them, you can use them to get hundreds/thousands of backward links...
That's only any good if you have the PR to drive into the AWS site in the first place. Also, If you're using the AWS site just for backward links then you might as well just send the PR to the intended site and skip sending it to the AWS first anyway.
Know of any other affiliate programs that offer web services?
No.
You can make a bot to index argos's and index's site using tradedoubler, but it's far too complicated...
What are argos and index (users I assume) sites? And tradedoubler?
They are UK cateloge shops which have atleast one shop in every city here.
Allow me take this opportunity to perform some unoriginal *****ing about Google's unfair algo changes and the like :) :rolleyes: :DQuote:
Originally posted by chromate
Dan (GCT13), You've probably had your site open now for the longest out of all of us. How's it going? You haven't mentioned it for ages! Is it working out? :)
No, only kidding folks! Joke! :D
Portable DVD Player's been up for nearly two months; in that time, I've sold 7 portable DVD players which I consider a stunning success because I'm nowhere to be found in the "portable dvd player*" keyword (I'm not complaining, just stating facts here). I've also gathered 4 commissions for dvd rentals services (Netflix, Walmart) and sold a dozen DVDs.
This month I've been getting about 90 visitors per day (mostly from Google). I was deep crawled once back in December and am getting the deep love right this moment. I'm looking forward to the day I actually show up *somewhere* in Google for the "portable dvd player*" keyphrase. :)
Well, at least you're covering your costs. That's gotta be a plus :)
No. Affiliate programs that do not offer web services this year will loose appeal. I bet the major affiliate houses are scrambling like mad to catch up and not be left too far behind in Amazon's dust.Quote:
Originally posted by pas
Know of any other affiliate programs that offer web services?
Definately. It's paid for hosting costs.Quote:
Originally posted by chromate
Well, at least you're covering your costs. That's gotta be a plus :)
It's still too early to guage its success. I'm very anxious to see where it ends up on SERPs with the keywords I optimized. Taking a little longer to show up in the results than I expected, but hey it'll happen someday! :D
I agree that many AWS sites (and many sites on the web, for that matter) are just plain horrible. But I also know that my standards (and those of most of us here) are much higher than the general shopping public, and that's an important point to realize. Many people are quite satisfied with crap. Why do you think Wal-Mart does so well?
I think there are at least two ways to go with AWS.
One is to just put something, anything, up on the web, get indexed, and know that some percentage of people will hit the site, perhaps become confused, but see that Amazon button and boom... you've tagged them for the next 24 hours. Kind of a random, drive-by approach. Sure, the percentages may not be high, but neither was the amount of work put into the site, so any earnings are a pure bonus.
The other way is to put some effort into combining the technology and Amazon's vast product catalog to present the products in a specialized way that Amazon never could. You hope that by presenting useful information in a visually appealing and user-friendly way, visitors will be impressed enough to purchase from your site rather than directly from Amazon. The amount of work involved is much higher, but you hope that it will result in increased sales and perhaps even in loyal return customers.
I don't know that we're anywhere near knowing which model is "better". I do know that because I've chosen the second route, I get frustrated when I'm reminded by the owners of the junk sites that they're making gobs of money. Especially when I can't even seem to get Google to index my site yet (it's only been two weeks, but gee whiz!).
I definitely don't agree that there are not very many people doing AWS sites. I think there are many thousands, and that number is increasing every day.
Disagree. WalMart doesn't sell crap, their product selection is quite fine. I look at WalMart stores as a near-perfect vehicles for giving people exactly what they want in a shopping experience. To that end, I make the assumption that WalMart has put the same kind of attention into its website, and study walmart.com's overall layout and interface.Quote:
Originally posted by flyingpylon
I agree that many AWS sites (and many sites on the web, for that matter) are just plain horrible.... Many people are quite satisfied with crap. Why do you think Wal-Mart does so well?
Ahhh - but Amazon does. As AWS sites (Amazon shopping site laboratories) proliferate they'll acquire a fascinating data collection, data that could be utilized for large or subtle shifts in Amazon.com's overall desing/layout. Imagine the developers at Amazon, being able to pour over the AWS sites that convert the best (and maybe better than Amazon.com). Wouldn't you like to know which sites those are? I sure would! :DQuote:
Originally posted by flyingpylon
[One could] put some effort into combining the technology and Amazon's vast product catalog to present the products in a specialized way that Amazon never could. You hope that by presenting useful information in a visually appealing and user-friendly way, visitors will be impressed enough to purchase from your site rather than directly from Amazon....
I don't know that we're anywhere near knowing which model is "better".
Yeah, it takes a while, some of my sites took 3-4 weeks before they were indexed.Quote:
Originally posted by flyingpylon
...I can't even seem to get Google to index my site yet (it's only been two weeks, but gee whiz!).
Alot of sites offer datafeeds (like overstock.com). But they are alot harder to implement than AWS and you need to update your data daily (or atleast weekly).Quote:
Originally posted by pas
Know of any other affiliate programs that offer web services?
Go to http://www.abestweb.com for more info on datafeeds and affiliate programs in general...
cheers
________
F platform
I'm really tempted to start an AWS site for my own. Even if I don't achieve any good rankings, it'd be nice to have all that PR power to throw around...
But don't you think they hurt the quality of search results? They're all basically cookie cutter sites siphoning sales off directly from Amazon.com. There really is no need for a middleman to take a commission.
Anyone think that Google might start cracking down on AWS sites? Maybe penalize sites with identical text?
Google will already penalize a site that has excessively identical content. If it gets really bad, they may try and implement something, but I think that would be some way off anyway. If a middle-man means that something is presented in a more easily understood and accesssible fashion, then I don't see it as a bad thing.
Also, as I said to Incka, you wont have any extra PR to throw around unless you source backlinks, just like any other site. Just because I site has loads of pages, doesn't mean it'll have loads of PR.
It's actually quite hard to get PR through backlinks on a AWS site. There are so many pages that making a link structure can be difficult in my opinion.
I have a casino review site - surely if I made an AWS site which only sold Gambling books etc, and then link to my review site at the bottom of every page on the AWS site, this would give me loads of backlinks, and hence increase my PR.
Sure each page will only have a low PR, but a thousand links from pages about related content would be a definite gain.
They do? What proof do you have?Quote:
Originally posted by chromate
Google will already penalize a site that has excessively identical content.
It's not the number of links that's important. It's how much PR they carry. If you're going to create a secondary site only to channel the PR into your primary site, then why not just get the backlinks to your primary site instead, and skip the "in between" site which, if used, will actually result in slightly less PR for your primary site anyway.Quote:
Originally posted by r2d2
I have a casino review site - surely if I made an AWS site which only sold Gambling books etc, and then link to my review site at the bottom of every page on the AWS site, this would give me loads of backlinks, and hence increase my PR.
Sure each page will only have a low PR, but a thousand links from pages about related content would be a definite gain.
Like Mike says, it would be hard to build a decent number of backlinks to an AWS site anway.
From Google:Quote:
Originally posted by r2d2
They do? What proof do you have?
- Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
- Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.
I don't recall any specific cases, but if you really want proof, try creating a load of identical sites and see what happens ;) It's an educated guess that google wouldn't be too pleased about it.
But of course, if you don't care what Google thinks then do what you want ;)
It's amazing how tied into Google we all are :(
Not really considering they control the majority of net traffic and consequently, a lot of incomes. It's almost like, not wanting to piss off the boss through fear of the sack :)
I do agree it's a shame it is that way though. I intend to create a site to be promoted offline because of that very reason. Haven't figured out what yet though :( heh
I don't get much of my traffic from google...
It's the way that most people get traffic though Mark.
I know - but it's a pity they don't have more competition so we wouldn't be chasing our own tails trying to optimise our site just for one search engine. Just spend time creating a good site and let all the engines gobble them up.
*sigh* I just remember the days when all you'd do is try and get listed in Yahoo! :p