I have been using Affilistore to build some of my affiliate websites using datafeeds. I really liked the product for the beginning and was contemplating on purchasing the the full version at the time for £49.00. A friends and a fellow blogger (Jon over at SuccessPart2.com) have alerted me that the product is now available for free, and the developer is only asking for a donation from those who liked the script.

One of the reason that I was considering full version of Affilistore was that it offered an option to use multiple datafeeds.

I highly recommend to get this product if your will be using datafeeds to build your websites.

I have downloaded Affilistore few weeks ago, but after running into a problem with installation, I have let it rest until yesterday. The installation glitch was my own fault: improper MySQL configuration. After realizing where the problem was it took me literally 30 minutes to create a website with hundreds of products. But first thing first…

What is Affilistore?

Affilisotre is a website building software that allows you to create and maintain affiliate websites utilizing merchants datafeeds. Both PHP and MySQL are required in order for this site builder to work. While I am still testing the free version, with limited features, I can see myself purchasing the full version in near future.

Installing Affilistore.

Before you will be able to install this software on your server you need to set MySQL database that will be used to store the data. There is no need to create ables, the Affilistore will do it, but you need to create a database and assign the user. When you set and ready to go just run the install.php from the directory to which you have uploaded your Affilistore software. This step will bring you to the following window:

Make sure to provide correct information about MySQL database to avoid errors. The information about your website can be changed and adjusted later but you need to provide it in this step in order to get o step 2 where you have to provide the URL for your data feed. I have used an URL for datafeed hosted remotely on a different server, but you can upload the file onto your own server:

After clicking “step 3″ button your browser will show a window where you can match the fields of your datafeed with appropriate tables of your store database, trying to match as many fields as possible. If there are some fields in the database that could not be matched with the fields in your database leave them along and these will not be reflected in your website:

That’s it! You have just created a website with hundreds of products: just like this printer ink store that I created in under 30 minutes.

One particular thing that I like about Affilistore that all the affiliate links are clocked and your visitors are being sent to merchant website via a PHP redirect page: go.php. This is particularly beneficial if you are using CJ merchants datafeeds where your affiliate links look some what ugly.

I wish there was also a way that this website would allow appending SID or other similar variables to your affiliate inks for the purpose of keyword tracking should you chose to dive the traffic to your site through pay par click advertising.

While the Affilistore Pro will set you back £49.99, it’s hard to beat the price of Affilistore Basic- it’s free! Also keep an eye on Affilistore Blog for the latest news and updates.

If you are an affiliate and decide to build website that will feature hundreds or even thousands of products, one of the way to go about it is to utilize data feeds from your merchants. Unfortunately in order to build the site on your own you will need some programing skills, knowledge of MySQL or similar data bases in conjunction of knowledge of server side scripting such as PHP. These are not difficult to learn and if you can, learning them can greatly enhance your affiliate websites.

If you decide to take my “path”, which includes of looking at programing as a big “monster” that is conquered only by few chosen ones, there are still solutions for you out there. Even if you do not have these specific programing skills, as long as you know how to copy and paste HTML code into your website, you will be able to create dynamic websites that will feature hundreds and even thousands of products. Read more »

Weebly, a web-based website creation tool, looks quiet promising. Although they have reach the initial minimum of offered accounts, I signed up today and hopefully will be able to use this very promising tool in the future.

The video below shows you how Weebly works:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjY83SnrO1M[/video]

After reviewing October web logs for all of mine WordPress powered websites, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that approximately 5% of the traffic was due to Technorati. I was disappointed to see though that most of my traffic ended up landing on an error (404) page. After taking a closer look I realized that it was to my own fault and I would like to share it with you if, so if you are operating a Wordpress site or any other blog that pings Technorati on a regular basis, you will not end up showing your visitors 404 error pages.

As you know whenever your website pings Technorati, short after thier boot comes visiting your website and providing the fresh content from your site to everyone at Technorati. This of course can result in some extra traffic to your website.

Why did my visitors ended up looking at 404 pages?

Well it was completely my own fault. Few times, or should I say many times, after a writing and publishing a new an article, I would become dissatisfied with either content or titles of my articles and by the end of the day may have change them. Since I am using Smart Update Pinger Plugin, my website does note ping any services unless new content is published. You can set that option in order to avoid of being seen as a spammer. Of course if you are a die heat blogger it probably will not matter. But for me it does, I do not publish very often.

Whenever I would change for example a title of one of my article, I would right away adjust the url to include keywords. But since after editing articles my sites send no pings, Technorati and maybe other service as well, do not update the change until days later. So whenever a Technorati user finds my site, it inevitable leads him or her to a 404 page.

What have I learned from this?

First of all, I underestimated the amount of traffic Technorati can provide to my sites. I was truly surprised by the numbers I saw. Most of all this traffic cost you nothing, its almost like a gift!

Secondly, I have learn good lesson about editing my posts. I know from my own experience that if I lend on “404″ page, the site has less than half a second to grab my attention. I would be much better for my visitors to see an updated page. So he lesson learn here is to take more time when writing the articles. This will assure less “404″ pages for may visitors and hopefully more than half a second to grab their attention.

Conclusion.

After this episode I know that Technorati got my attention for real this time, and I would highly recommend to any blogger to make sure your website pings Technorati along with other “blog search engines”. Also, whenever writing an article, if your are not satisfied 100% with what you have written, take more time before publishing it, otherwise you may end up just like me, showing your visitors error pages.