Prospective Buyer Questions

[stargatefan]

I posted this yesterday, but put it in the wrong section, so I"m moving it here..

I am thinking seriously about buying the 68 classifieds script. I was curious if this is just a demo issue or not glitches. These are the things I have questions about (per demo trial):

1. When posting an add, when you get to the step of uploading a picture, once you finish with the upload, there isn't a "continue" button, only a "skip this step" button.. I guess that can be frustrating to the user, not knowing if his picture can be added or not.

2. Also, not so much a biggie, but even for free listings is still asks them to confirm their billing address in the next step after the upload of photo.. Perhaps this could turn off a user and the back out of the whole thing, (thinking they would be charged for something they didn't order). Since I'm offering this as a free classifieds site only (monetizing off adsense/amazon ads only), is it possible to get this step deactivated?

3. I can't get the template editor to work in the demo.. When I try to edit these to see how to add adsense coding, banners, or affiliate links, the feature doesn't seem to be working (this may just be a demo feature that's not active)? I'm an entry level coder, so are adding these links/affiliate codes fairly easy in the real version?

4. The seo module doesn't look like its installed in the demo version. Is there anywhere I could see what the SEO urls look like? Perhaps someone that is using this module can share their website with the module active.

Again, these could only be glitches in the demo or I may be doing something incorrectly.


Any input appreciated,

Interested Buyer

[freeze2 +]

1. You can easily change the text on most things, including submit buttons, through the language files or right in the template files of the theme.

2. I only run free listings as well, and it is very easy to hide the billing info using css display:none.

3. Not sure on the template editor, but, you can easily edit the files via any popular web editor. Again, very easy to do if you are familiar with HTML and CSS.

4. I don't use the SEO module, maybe someone else in the forums, can post some examples.

Hope that helps

[John Snyder +]

The template editor is disabled in the demo for security reasons, you should be able to see the editor but not save any changes.

The seo module uses mod_rewrite to change the urls from something like:

mydomain.com/viewlisting.php?view=1

to something like:

mydomain.com/listing/1/listing_title.html

You can edit it to produce urls in a variety of ways, i.e. use dashes instead of underscores, you can eliminate the /1/ and append it to the title, and etc.

The seo module will rewrite just about every type of url for 68 Classifieds, not just the view listing.

[stargatefan]

OH cool, so the SEO module is pretty flexible then.. Per your example, it can even change the .php pages to .html file extensions?

And to confirm, when a user is placing an ad, you can add a "continue" instead of just a "skip this step" button? Its seems kind of confusing to the user if they can only select "skip this step", even if they want or have already uploaded a photo. This may just be a demo thing, but I couldn't see how to fix that.

One other question, I want to keep as much as much content indexed in the search engines as possible. How does the software handle "sold" listings? Is it possible when a user edits/deletes and/or marks their as sold, can these listings still remain published so the listing is still in the search engines? The more unique content, the more traffic.. I'm thinking about using the "related listings" addon for 68classifieds (forgot which developer makes it) for sold listings, so they will still finding related listings for what they're looking for.. Is there a way to leave these sold/deleted listings published, even after they've sold?

In the future, I want to monetize this thing, with the current version of the 68classifieds software, is it easy to add advertsier banners, adsense ads, amazon and/or Ebay affiliate links? Is there a certain addon or module that works well for that, or is something in the works?


Sorry for all the questions, these are just things that I know will eventually come up as my site expands.. Any input appreciated.

[freeze2 +]

Originally Posted by stargatefan

And to confirm, when a user is placing an ad, you can add a "continue" instead of just a "skip this step" button? Its seems kind of confusing to the user if they can only select "skip this step", even if they want or have already uploaded a photo. This may just be a demo thing, but I couldn't see how to fix that.

Very easy, you will need to edit the template or language files.

Originally Posted by stargatefan

One other question, I want to keep as much as much content indexed in the search engines as possible. How does the software handle "sold" listings? Is it possible when a user edits/deletes and/or marks their as sold, can these listings still remain published so the listing is still in the search engines? The more unique content, the more traffic.. I'm thinking about using the "related listings" addon for 68classifieds (forgot which developer makes it) for sold listings, so they will still finding related listings for what they're looking for.. Is there a way to leave these sold/deleted listings published, even after they've sold?

Personally, I have nevered worried about expired ads as connected to SEO problems...people will probably argue this, but Google doesn't expect every page on the internet to stay there and on my site, I have never lost any page rank because of it. My concern would be to have a bunch of sold listings on the site and upsetting my viewers because they have to sort through them encouraging them not to come back.

Originally Posted by stargatefan

In the future, I want to monetize this thing, with the current version of the 68classifieds software, is it easy to add advertsier banners, adsense ads, amazon and/or Ebay affiliate links? Is there a certain addon or module that works well for that, or is something in the works?

The amount you want to learn about HTML and CSS will dictate how far you can take your project...the 68C script is very versatile. Check out templatecodes.com, they have some pretty great stuff that might be of interest as well.

[stargatefan]

I have to differ, leaving closed/expired listings indexed is highly valuable for both SEO and traffic.. Look at the major sites like Ebay, 2 out of 3 listings you see in the Google search results are actually for auctions that expired months ago.. Ebay then places "related items" related to this item and redirects users there.. Their traffic has shot up tremendously because of that.

Also, what if someone links to a listing on your website however 30 days later the classfied script software removes the listings completely from the database.. Won't that cause broken links to your site.. Those links could count to highly improve your link popularity and search ranking, but they won't count if all the postings are deleted after 30 days or so.. So leaving the pages in there, is a huge advantage SEO and Traffic wise.


I went to that site you mentioned, but I didn't see a module to place banners, adsense, or other affiliate ads/links into 68Classifieds software.. I'm not a programmer/coder, so I guess there isn't an easy solution for the coding ignorant like myself for adding various advertisements code? My skill level is limited to copy and paste of code only, unfortunately. If anyone can give a second opinion, please let me know.. I have 5 sites total I need classified scripts built on, so I just need to dot my "i's" and "ts" on this before making a purchase.

[John Snyder +]

The script wasn't written with keeping expired listings in mind, and there for there is no easy way of retaining these listings. It is something that is often requested and I do plan to make this an option in the next major release, though that is some time away. It can be done, but you will need to hire a developer to implement it. I can give you some starting points on how to achieve it if you do make the purchase.

I can tell you some problems with the sold listing idea if its not done right:

1. Waters down your non-sold listings, users enter your site on a sold listing might leave and go to a competitor. Altering the title to say **sold** can mitigate that to some extent.
2. Owners with hundreds of listings won't want to sort over these sold listings in the listing management
3. Some people will still contact them because they didn't notice it was sold, its very bothersome when you want to sell a car, it sells, and weeks later your still getting calls or emails. This isn't a big deal and is actually a plus for dealerships allowing the to attempt to sell something related, but for a 1 listing owner its a pain. They might just mark your site generated emails as spam or etc.

It can be done, I would just really think it through with a balance of what the listing owner wants, the listing searcher wants, and what benefits you can get for seo.

As for the seo module, while it is very flexible, you will need to be able to change the code to get the flexibility. Switching from underscore (default) to dash requires you edit the hooks.php file, you can ask here if you purchase and I'll tell you how. The module doesn't actually change the files from php to html, it just catches the .html/seo url request and redirects them to the php file. It also requires that you have an apache server with mod_rewrite enabled.

There is not an integrated solution regarding banners and adsense. However, most of these just involve adding javascript to the template and you should be okay copy/pasting those provided you have an understanding of HTML structure as you don't want to just put it anywhere. I would recommend using a banner management system for banner ads, they will usually generate the javascript or source to add to your website. I used phpadsnew (now called openx) for banner ads and it was a very nice system years ago: Open source ad serving platform for publishers | OpenX | OpenX

[stargatefan]

THanks John.. Yeah, adding that functionality in the next release and/or tools to add affiliate links and banners would be a huge perk! Not sure how hard to implement, but perhaps when a user marks their ad as being sold, their phone number or related contact info could be auto deleted and auto-replaced with a big red "SOLD" font. I plan on using the related listings module as well that a developer has made for this software.. Can't remember the name of the module off the top of my head though.. That module should work really well with getting these visitors to related listings.

Is there any ETA on the next major release by chance?

[John Snyder +]

Well, the banner ads management isn't likely to make its way in since there are good ad management systems out there, but the listing status like sold, pending, etc will definitely be in there.

As for v5's release, its at its earliest stages of development so I can't give you an estimate. Once it makes it to an beta release we will start asking for testers, but do not base your purchase decision on the planned feature for v5.

[stargatefan]

Thanks for your replies everone. I tell you, I really like the look of the purple layout, however I miss having a left sidebar to add additional pages to, is there currently a hybrid between Purple and Default templates, and/or is it easy to add a left side bar and to move pages there as well.. Perhaps this isn't a feature I'm not seeing in the Demo? Also Is there a trick on how to choose which pages go on the top navigatio menu and how to select which ones you want on the left navigation menu?


In the Demo for "User Groups" you can edit many user permissions fields, however I can't find where to tell which users can post and delete ads and which can't. Iis there a field in the real version where you can tell which groups can post and delete listings? Is it possible to allow certain groups to post ads only, but not be able to delete them without admin approval first? If so, I can just manually delete their phone numbers and replace it with SOLD in all caps, that way the content pages build and they don't get any unnecesary calls.


Also, I saw a neat feature in the Demo, where you can choose how many days before expired listings are deleted (I think it's defaulted to 7 days). Would changing this to 1000 days for example, save these ads in the datebase for a full 1000 days? Could this option also work for sold/deleted ads or does the user override it whenever they manually delete it?


Sorry for all the quesstions on this.. I think I'm getting this narrowed down, I just am a little uncertain on a few of these things..