Over the last few years I have tried several different solutions that allowed me to create affiliate websites featuring thousands of products from my merchants. Two of my favorites so far were a) WordPress Datafeed Import Script – a script for WordPress that allowing you to import merchants datafeeds creating a blog post for each product and b)AffiliSotre- a stand alone script that also allowed you to easy create affiliate websites using datafeeds from your affiliate networks and merchants.

One of the big tasks associate with both above mentioned scripts was the preparation and cleanup of datafeeds before adding them to your websites, since every network has their own way of formating their datafeeds. Needless to say when I came across Datafeedr- I was sold immediately.

If you are inexperience programmer like myself, Datafeedr maybe the way to go. It does however require some basic knowledge of WordPress and it is not free, but good folks at Datafeedr are rather confident about their products and offer a 30 days money back guarantee.

Since the Datafeedr is the most expensive solution I have used so far. I will spend considerable amount of time writing about my experience with this plugin, it’s features and even their affiliate program. While I am immensely impressed with some Datafeedr features, there are few features I would like to see improved or added.

If you would like to read more about my experience with Datafeedr- make sure to subscribe to my blog or follow me on Twitter.

My friend Mark from Digital Product Reporter is at it again, coding and having some fun…. This time with WordPress of all things. Who knows maybe he will come around to fall in love with the best blogging platform out there.

Mark recently have release a neat little eBay plugin for WordPress, and I think eBay “junkies” can appreciate it. I have not been an affiliate with eBay until I got my hands on Mark’s plugin so I will probably offer no opinion on how this plugin can be improved.

Once installed on your WordPress, plugin pulls in the latest auctions from eBay by keywords specified by you. It displays the eBay items starting from the auction to end the soonest. Once an auction is completed it moves the item is replaced by the next auction in line. So on many levels this is a sort of “set it and forget it” plugin- as it continues to do the work for you without you giving it any attention.
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At the time of giving my shout out to PepperJam Store Builder, I was not able to embed that code into my post as my blog is powered by WordPress. Today PepperJam announced that they have added a feature that allows affiliates to grab the code specifically optimized for the WordPress. This new enhancement will help many affiliates like myself, not so much technically inclined, to create pages in seconds using WordPress. Below is the live example and proof that the code is working in WordPress flawlessly.

The snapshot to the right should speak for it self. That’s right I have updated my WordPress installation to the latest version. While several plugins are not compatible yet with the latest version of WordPress, Semiologic Extract Terms Plugin being one of them, I am still glad I went ahead through this upgrade.

This is the first time ever that I have upgraded the WordPress to the latest version long before it became available via Fantastico. In fact I said goodbye to Fnatastico for good. Unless you are hosting your blog with Bluehost, Hostmonster or FastDomain, you probably have not heard about Simple Scripts. You can on my other blog about initial impression Simple Script made on me.

I have to say that ability to upgrade your scripts within hours of them being available on the Internet sounds like a sweet idea.

Just a quick tip. If you decide to test the Simple Script, before doing anything else back up your databases as well as your current installations. If upgrading a installation made by Fantastico, do not opt to create new administrator and new database. Just fire up the script and at the end replace the new wp-config.php with the one you backed up, or enter the information needed to connect to your database in wp-config.php file.

On a personal note. I do hope many other web hosting providers will integrate Simple Scripts into their control panels. Feel free to point your own web hosting provider to Simple Scripts. I can’t praise enough Simple Scripts. This new way of installing and upgrading self-hosted platforms like WordPress will come very handy around the times when “crucial security updates” will be implemented. Unlike Fantastico, Simple Scripts will have the latest versions available for installation within hours, not weeks.

And of course as always, since this upgrade took place less than an hour ago I ask you to please report to me any bugs you may encounter.

Do you find yourself linking to a particular blog or website often? Do you link to your older posts? Do you promote a particular product and would like to associate your affiliate links to a keyword or a key phrase? Would you like some of these tasks to be done automatically as soon as certain keyword is mentioned in your post? If you answered yes to one of the question you may be interested in the WordPress plugin called aLinks.

I have had my eyes on several plugins meant to do these sort of things. Some of them were free and some were not. After taking a closer look at aLinks, I have come to conclusion that this plugin will suite my needs completely.

The plugin comes with four four modules allowing you to:

• turn keywords into links to your own blog posts- might be very useful if you often links to your older posts
• turn keywords into links to any URL of your choice- as an affiliate I find this feature to be the most beneficial
• turn keywords into links to to the gada.be website- I never heard about this website until now
• turn keywords into links to Amazon.com – amazon affiliates might find this option useful

There are other aLinks modules available, including a module that allows you to link to your Commission Junction merchants. If you are a savvy programmer, you might be able to come up with your own module. If you do so, make sure to stop by here again and let me know about the module you have created. For time being, the module that I will be utilizing the most on my blogs are those allowing me to link to URLs of my choice. There is an option to cloak your links as well.

Finally I would like to thank Mark from 45n5 for pointing me to this plugin, even though he thinks that WordPress sucks.