enriching content to make your site more marketable

[pauljr]

I have found that the the more content we can get in our site then the more traffic we get to our site and therefor there is more potential for $$ to be made on photo ads, banners etc. I would like to know if anyone uses any other websites like this one http://www.digi-go.biz/about.html that publish ads in others peoples classifieds automatically.

I think they are a benifit to my website because they do publish good clean ads in the auto section which draws more shoppers to my site. I would like to find a similar site for other catagories. I guess they are a distributing classified ads to other websites in hope of selling that item for the person the ad. I think it also benifits me and my site.. Any thoughts on this?


Example of their automatic posting in my classifieds:
http://www.buyswapsell.com/viewlisting.php?view=978

Any ideas? Maybe this could spark an idea for a data feed module or API for distributing/sharing ads between 68classifieds sites/members? Just a thought.

[Mike-N-Tosh]

Although I can see the merits of driving traffic to your website, I'm personally "put off" by sites that have ads within them that just clearly drive you to yet a different site of ads.

The ads that you have on your site from "digigo" make the end user copy a link that isn't a clickable link in the description and then paste it into their web browser to even go to their site.

In addition if you use the "more ads from this seller" link, you can clearly see that this seller is selling vehicles from several different locations throughout the US which IMO raises a "fraud flag".

As you have the "Contact this seller" turned off on your ads, there isn't even a way to contact the seller which is clearly not even the listed seller, digigo.

That's just my own personal opinion and I'm sure there are many other differing opinions. I guess it's just a matter of, "To each his own."

-Mike

[pauljr]

I have contact seller turned on only for members but that doesn't help in this case becasue they are not the true seller but rather just the bot that posting the ad. They seem pretty legit to me becasue they are basically another classifieds ads site that auto post their ads to many other classifieds systems.

I guess I migth could fix it so that it makes all hyper links open in new windows to address that concern. This is the type of information I wanted to hear though. Thank you.

[Lhotch]

I have to agree with Mike. Content may be king, but king of what? Adding ads that are simply an ad for another classified site and dont carry actual seller info are only good for your site ranking where search engines are concerned, they have no value to the buyer because now you are asking them to follow links and chase down the real seller. It reeks of link farm to me.

The only way I would import ads into my site is if I was actually importing the details of the ad seller so the buyer can contact them and make a purchase without having to leave my site to get further info..

[pauljr]

I see your point but if the 68class system could handle rss feeds and the contact information was inside the RSS feed then that all could be sorted out with the RSS feed reader that generates the ads.

I have found several reputable classifieds systems that feed yahoo etc. with rss feeds that wouldn't require us to link back to them.. Bascailly in he feed it has everythign you need including contact information. If they supply a website then that could just be opened in a new window.

[Lhotch]

Originally Posted by pauljr

I see your point but if the 68class system could handle rss feeds and the contact information was inside the RSS feed then that all could be sorted out with the RSS feed reader that generates the ads.

I have found several reputable classifieds systems that feed yahoo etc. with rss feeds that wouldn't require us to link back to them.. Bascailly in he feed it has everythign you need including contact information. If they supply a website then that could just be opened in a new window.

Im working on an rss feed import for a client right now. I know it sounds like a simple task but its really not as easy as it sounds. Ill cover some basics of what I mean.

For starters, in order to successfully get data into your site the script has to know what fields are being sent to it. Since this can be different for every feed there has to be some way for someone to map the source fields to the destination fields in your site. This is further complicated by the fact that no 2 68C sites have the same categories or extra fields.

When yahoo offers a feed, they say "Here is our feed" take it or leave it. The format is set in stone and its your job, or the job of the company who sells the classified site software to create a means to take this feed an import it, but how are they to know what fields and categories you have defined? They dont so they have to create an interface that allows you to map yahoo categories to your own. This in and of itself ads additional complexity. What happens if yahoo has a category that you do not, where does that ad go? A catch all category or does it get ignored?

Then, we have the issue of expiration of ads. Is your site going to check the yahoo feed daily and remove ads from your site that are no longer in the feed and add new ones that appear in the feed? Or, if they drop out of the yahoo feed, do you simply let them run for for the remainder of the ads expiration period, possibly causing the owner of the item to be bombarded with e-mails/calls for something s/he may no longer have?

In the end, if your site does nothing but holds ads from yahoo or other big sources, why would I waste my time going to your site at all? Yahoo offers a much more powerfull search tool and is a lot faster.

No offense intended, but if your goal is to simply have people pass through and possibly click a paying link then you may be onto something BUT if your looking to fit into a niche market and build a community I dont think pulling ads off of bigger sites is the way to go.

[pauljr]

Great thoughts.. Thank you.

[SkGold]

I absolutely agree with Mike and Larry.

Originally Posted by Lhotch

The only way I would import ads into my site is if I was actually importing the details of the ad seller so the buyer can contact them and make a purchase without having to leave my site to get further info..

Good point. Otherwise it is just going to damage your Brand Name.

There are so many other ways to build the content and to drive traffic to your site.
Importing the ads from other sites it is probably the last thing that I would consider for my site.

Allowance to use your RSS feeds for other classified sites it just another Internet marketing way.
IMO you are simply promoting their business and at the same time damaging yours.

[digigo]

To protect seller's privacy I do not display seller's contact information on all ads. Serious buyer can find that out by following a link, which normally has more photos of the same vehicle. The link also saves me bandwith by showing the ads only to the serious buyers.

All the vehicle ads are from bona fide sellers. And I am getting better at detecting fraudulent sellers based on IP and wording pattern.

There are a lot of benefits to have professional submitters sending ads to your site. These ads are reviewed, and filtered. Pictures are properly resized and compressed. Zipcodes are made sure to match the city and state. And your website will get a constant stream of fresh ads instead of the same old ads.

I work with many site owners and they are happy with my service. Currently I only provide vehicle ads submission, but later I may get into other types of merchandise ads as well.

[Lhotch]

Originally Posted by digigo

To protect seller's privacy I do not display seller's contact information on all ads. Serious buyer can find that out by following a link, which normally has more photos of the same vehicle. The link also saves me bandwidth by showing the ads only to the serious buyers.

All the vehicle ads are from bona fide sellers. And I am getting better at detecting fraudulent sellers based on IP and wording pattern.

There are a lot of benefits to have professional submitters sending ads to your site. These ads are reviewed, and filtered. Pictures are properly resized and compressed. Zipcodes are made sure to match the city and state. And your website will get a constant stream of fresh ads instead of the same old ads.

I work with many site owners and they are happy with my service. Currently I only provide vehicle ads submission, but later I may get into other types of merchandise ads as well.

I can understand why you want other sites to carry your ads, especially since they all point back to your site, but why on earth would I want to carry your ads when it forces my visitors to leave my site???

As I said above it does nothing to build up MY loyal customer base it just makes me a link whore.

I can understand protecting your sellers privacy, id do the same but as I said I wont carry ads on my site if there is no way for my visitors to contact and buy what they are looking for without leaving. There is absolutely no value in it for me aside from filling my site with your ads and directing my clients to use your service.