Sure, it’s not one I’ve used before but I’ll get it installed. Great suggestion, thank you:)

Ben

Would you consider adding the ’subscribe to comments’ plugin? It makes it much easier to know when there is an answer instead of having to refresh a page. Just a thought :)

Rochelle

Thanks for that, I hope you will find it useful. I am still in the process of putting the site together, it won’t be at all complicated in fact it will be quite simple to start with.

I’ll be detailing exactly what I do to remove the BANS ‘footprint’ but many of the things will include removing the ‘view more items’ link, removing the sort by box, not using the ‘powered by BANS’ link. All the usual stuff. I also won’t be adding more than 3 listings per page and I will try to make it more content based than listing based.

Hopefully this will make a difference. Keep a look out for an update.

Ben

What all are you doing to remove the BANS footprint? And, will you be using v2 or v3 to create the site?

Rochelle

Still working on it, got a little bit delayed building another site which I had hacked. I will have something to report this week though :).

Cheers for reading
Ben

Any news on this experiment?

Thanks.

Al.

@Gerri

Thanks Gerry, hopefully the results should be good.

@James

Hopefully this will help you re-gain some faith in the BANS platform:).

@Sallie

That’s the thing…you definitely have to move away from that out of the box BANS feel, even if it’s just removing the obvious BANS footprint and changing the theme a little..it’s nice to hear someone doing well with BANS which is encouraging.

@Tzuvelli

I agree that the ‘out of the box’ BANS site has certainly not helped towards the overall attitude towards BANS, I actually enjoyed using BANS myself so I am hoping to see good results. Having said all of that I personally know people who had very good quality sites which were de-indexed by the SE’s for little or no reason.

With regard to content…I find it depends on the model/type of site I am going for. I have 3 sites which don’t get updated and they are earning well over $1200 per month between them using the e-commerce model, they are just very well optimized and are marketed well.

@Gerry

Thanks for that, I loved using BANS ‘back in the day’ I learned a lot whilst using it so I am actually enjoying playing around with the script again.

Ben

As far as updating content is concerned, I am not convinced that this is a major factor or absolutely necesary. There are plenty of static sites out there that have not had their content updated for years yet they rank well for their target niches. Constantly updating content may help to get you to the top but I am not sure that it is the primary impetus to keep a site at the top.

Making money with eBay has always been more about choice of niche than the affiliate tool you use.

I do not use BANS because it is not flexible enough for my strategy.

Just my two cents.

Beau

I added a wordpress blog to one of the sites (BANS is the root) because I had content reasons to do so, and that has brought me a bit more traffic, but it was already the most highly-trafficked and highest earner among my BANS sites. Apparently a number of people have found success by creating wordpress sites with BANS as a subfolder.

I still like BANS for lots of reasons, but I am planning to use phpbay in my next site because I want to see how that works. I hope your new site does well and look forward to your updates.

The fishing BANS site makes a little each month. Just enough to keep it but I am not making it any better, perhaps I should.

The gardening BANS site has never done anything, so I guess I really only have one BANS site working at all.

I will be curious to see what happens in your experiment Ben. Perhaps you will discover something I can use to make my two BANS work better and then I might even create a few more.

I agree that BANS sites are much harder to keep updated and you don’t get as much flexibility with them by far, there are just so many people who think it’s impossible to make money with BANS. I used to enjoy putting a BANS site together so it will be fun if nothing else. It’s safe to say though that I know before I even start that Wordpress is my preference.

Ben

Thanks for that, we will see how it goes, it’s certainly been a long while since I put one together. I may even find I don’t like using the platform any more but there is only one way to find out.

Ben

From the extra plugins, widgetized sidebars, and numerous extensibility options with WP, its just a stronger and easier to use solution.

SO.. in my opinion, BANS is not really dead, its just that someone came along and built a better solution that equates to a higher $/hour.

Mark

Enjoy the journey.

Mandy