My BANS/phpBay Sites Are Still Making Money
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In August 2008, Google deindexed most of my BANS/phpBay sites. Like I mentioned before, it was my own fault and take full responsability. Since then, I added only 7 sites to my very small network of 29 sites(36 total). I also added it on 3 of my WordPress blogs using phpPay Pro WP plugin(worth it).
I did not do more link building using BMD or FBF for some time on most of my sites. The last point is very important here because the traffic is still coming from other search engines like Yahoo/MSN. Imagine when I will make new BANS/phpBay sites with more content on it to make Google happy. 
Show me the numbers
I will not used real numbers but I'm going to go with my biggest earning month as the baseline.
May: 61.22%
June: 100% I earned the most that month
July: 85.48%
August: 40.2%
September: 25.78%
October: 31.95%
November: 69.6%
December: 107.1% (up to Dec. 31)
Are BANS/phpBay dead?
Some will say that those kind of sites are dead now. Those that tell you that are complete morons or they just want to keep the competition away. 
If you look at only Google traffic, it's partly true but Google does like WP blogs and the phpBay WP plugin can be added to your blog.
In fact, I do have BANS/phpBay sites(not blogs) still indexed. Most were created after the Google deindex using the phpBay API (v2.5).
I only use phpBay API and the WP plugin now. I don't use BANS because I prefer the phpBay API.
I can build Canadian specific post because I also make money from Canadian visitors too. Plus, phpBay WP has 14 parameters you can control/override. That's one reason I added Plugin Code Builder to AuctionSiteWriter to make that step easier.
Alternatives
You could also use other alternative(free/paid) on your blog but look at the features first. For example, phpBay has a free version. It was too simplistic that I upgraded to the Pro(Bundle). Because I wanted to give a better experience to potential buyers, I needed to filter out some keywords.
Conclusion
Some will point to me that the increase is because many are shopping for the holidays online. This is a fact and I won't argue that point.
But conside this: Because of the recession, most people will try to find a better deal on new or a used product. Thus, creating a targeted BANS/phpBay sites will be one more way for you to make money.
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Elliott said:
Steve,
Good to see you and I are in the same boat. Most of my BANS sites have been deindexed with the exception of some aged domains that I picked up. I am still making good money with them until this month, and I think the economy is hurting it.
What is the benefit of using the WP phpbay plugin over using the editor kit or another method that EPN offers? Does the plugin give more control over layout and things? I have thought about trying it out but not sure if it’s right for me or not.
December 26th, 2008 at 3:40 pm -
Steve McGrath said:
Elliott, If your picked high price items, that would not help you in this bad economy.
phpBay plugin allow you to hide the eBay logo. I don’t want to give them the idea to bypass my site and go directly to ebay.
You have some options on the way the items are shown too like columns, number of items, price range …December 26th, 2008 at 4:20 pm -
Todd Morris said:
Hi Steve,
I’m totally in sync with what you’re saying here. In fact I have one BANS/Wordpress integrated site had by far it’s best month ever in Dec … with a grand total of 9 google visitors. I’m loving me some Yahoo lately.
lol, I don’t even know exactly how to optimize for yahoo … maybe there are some 90s era books out there. But, when 95% of the people coming to a BANS site arrive from searches like Discount Keyword, Best Price for Keyword, Buy a brand new Keyword … it doesn’t take a whole lot of traffic to end up with a good check at the end of the month.
The funny thing is, I doubt I could even come close to getting those kind of keywords on Google … and even if I could, I’m not sure I’d want to. I did a G search for my highest traffic keyword, and immediately noticed one of the paid links at the top …. it was ebay … and the first two non-paid links were for the company that makes my keyword products.
I guess we just keep plugging along. Even if I never made another dime with BANS, the ROI has already been pretty sweet.
Todd
January 4th, 2009 at 8:53 am -
Steve McGrath said:
lol on the 9 visitors
About keywords: I will use buying longtail keywords. For example, if I see the same result like you did for a keyword, I won’t use it. It’s too much competition.
Like I mentioned use longtail and be number 1 faster with less work. You may not get the same result($) but it’s more than nothing.
January 4th, 2009 at 9:21 am
