I promised to
update my findings from yesterdays post.
Casey has responded on the EPN forum about the changes to the feed structure. Once again EPN has dropped the ball on this as all developers I have talked to did not see this coming. If you plan on cloaking BANS links, you better hold off still. I also doubt you will see a fix provided by A&K on this as well. The fix will likely come from a forum member like Sonjay or Tao. The good news if you own
PHPBay, is that Wade is on the case and has a call set up in the coming days with EPN to make sure
PHPBay is handling things right. As of right now it appears
PHPBay is handling the changes fine and the links are tracking properly. As much as I love BANS and supported it in the past, you need to take my advice from previous post on learning Wordpress and work towards switching BANS sites over to Wordpress and
PHPBay. Unless you are well versed in PHP and coding, you are holding a gun to your mouth in a Russian Roulette type scenario. A&K have made it clear they are no longer tied to the development of BANS, so you will be at the mercy of others soon. Remember my earlier statement. BANS works until it no longer works. It is getting closer and closer to not working.
Below is the post from Casey:
Hi everyone,
We’d like to thank you for your patience through the recent change made to the RSS Feed links that has impacted some of you, and apologize for the delayed response on the boards as well as the lack of a proactive message to announce this change. There was some miscommunication here on when this change was planned to roll out. Essentially we updated the links in the RSS Feeds to reflect the new link generator structure which we implemented a while back. This new link structure includes added parameters that we plan to use for some optimization initiatives to further enhance our tools and most importantly help generate higher earnings for our partners.
We believe the third party tools being used to publish content from the ePN RSS Feeds will update as necessary, if not already, to account for this new link structure and direct users to the correct pages on eBay. Also, as recommended by others in this thread it’s a good idea to consult the resources available through these third parties for further assistance. Please note that there are no issues with the RSS Feed URLs and links when taken directly from the publisher interface.
Thanks again for your patience,
Casey
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6 comments:
I just bought BANS. Are you telling me that this platform is dead?
Caseys comment in the forum is not relevant to that specific RSS issue.
The REAL problem is that they no longer accept redirects with the html rendering of amphersand.
So, if you use redirects you must replace html amphersand with the actual single character "&".
From comments by another user, I think the reverse may be true, that if you link directly to EPN from a web page, you must use the html, not single "&" character.
EPN used to handle these URL's fine, now they dont.
It has nothing to do with other rss changes, but the way the do (or now dont) handle the mix of HTML and non HTML amphersands.
A simple
$url = str_replace(html-amp, non-html-&, $url);
will fix that problem.
As I dont trade off my EPN account I dont have enough feedback to post this solution in the forums... so have sat on the sidelines watching the mess unfold, perhaps you could test what I am saying and post the solution in the forum.
No of course bans is not dead... this is just a little blip... a storm in a teacup!
@Web Auto - No, it is not dead. You need to read my statement though. It works until it doesn't work any more. Any fixes that need to be made with the coming of PHP6 will likely be made by other forum members. It is still a viable platform, but only supported by the members in the forum. It will be kept alive for years I believe, but you should be prepared for a worst case scenario. It is what it is and will require several modifications along the way.
Dave
Thanks Soggy Dave, but it seems to me you're saying that I bought BANS but there will be no support for the script from the people who sold it to me.
That's a big deal. I've relied on community support before. It's no way to run a business.
@Web Auto - If you are new to affiliate marketing and building niche sites, BANS is perfect to learn on and use as a starting point. Nearly everything has been covered in the forums and it still is a community of people who use and develop. A & K have not really offered support for BANS for a long time. BANS has relied on the membership for quite a while. People step up when a fix is needed. Is the right for them to have to? No. It is what it is though. Learn with BANS and then progress to Wordpress. If you feel duped, I highly suggest getting a refund quickly. I think the grace period is pretty long.
Dave
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