I am an OLD techie... have not touched any code other than html in about 9 years... but I still have friends in the biz... LOTS OF THEM....

What do we need and I'll talk to some people.. In fact the cub master in my cub scout troop is the programmer in charge over at the Hard Rock and he's rather po'd at ebay right now....

And I used to beta test for Microsoft.... so I can pitch in but don't know how good my knowledge will be it's not up to date.

And as I've said before... I'll donate adwords, links, cash(don't have much but I'll chip in.. LOL)

If only someone could get BidHopper to talk to us. I bet Renee could help with that!

I had never heard of bidhopper so I went there - and I couldn't find anything - not even stuff I had on ebay - So I typed in Lionel Train because I know there's tons of them up all over the place - and I got no results. I typed in Dress form and no results - antique crock, ditto.

Maybe their search servers down because their browse thing came up. However, I found it too be kind of sluggish and I have a super fast computer.

Most of the sites included in bidhopper are independent sites most of us here have never heard of. I wish I could persuade them to include the larger sites they currently don't. If you have my spreadsheet, there is a column to the far right where I put a Y if the site is 'bidhopped'. There are a LOT of sites in the sheet where the only info so far is that I found them on Bidhopper (copy and paste of the scrolling list of sites on the left) - so they are Format:Bidhopper until I check them out (if ever).

HiBidder Plunderhere USiFF WeBidz and YourHighBid are bidhopped according to their sites and Bidhopper. Those are the only ones (whose names members of this site would be looking for) that are bidhopped as far as I can tell.

I cannot tell what sites may be on BidFind as they didn't provide a list, and didn't answer my email.

I'm not sure it's so important to worry about bidhopper and bidfind - they both have ways to have your own site included.

So adding them to your own search is kind of redundant.

I never heard of them before - but I guess it couldn't hurt to add your own website to them.

If you notice on Bidfind's getting your site listed, it mentions adding metatags to your webpages. It seems that this is among one of the main reasons some sights aren't getting the results they want on aggreagated searches. It's not that they weren't added in - it's just that they're not presenting with an easy enough way to search them.

The reason I "worry about" bidfind and bidhopper is because they already index and multi-search a wide variety of sites. They already have the technology in place. If they would/could add more that we would like to see included, we would HAVE our Aggregating Search. I wish I could get a dialogue opened with the site owners. If either of them could be improved to the point we're discussing here, I would spend my $50 in Google AdWords to advertise them.

purple_reading_giraffe wrote (View Post): › The reason I "worry about" bidfind and bidhopper is because they already index and multi-search a wide variety of sites. They already have the technology in place. If they would/could add more that we would like to see included, we would HAVE our Aggregating Search. I wish I could get a dialogue opened with the site owners. If either of them could be improved to the point we're discussing here, I would spend my $50 in Google AdWords to advertise them.

We would have to get people on the auction sites or websites to add the required search code, they require then start seeing if we get better results on a search.

For bidhopper it states

BidHopper.com is a Free listing and search engine service for the dynamic pricing community. We dynamically index all listed items on our members web sites 4 times per day to provide you with the freshest listings possible. Our listings are indexed directly from Auctions, Classifieds, Shopping Carts, and other dynamic pricing platform types from all around the world. If it's for sale, it's listed here!


Our Mission & Goal is a simple one: To bring Buyers and Sellers together.


Simply place the Dynalist Generator on your site, and then submit your site for inclusion at www.BidHopper.com and their spider will index all of your listings ... For Free!

and for the other it states

BidFind is the Internet's largest aggregator of dynamic pricing data.


In 1995, BidFind was one of a few sites that pioneered auctions on the Net. Since then we have aided millions of visitors to online sites with our services. Today, our agent visits thousands of popular online dynamic pricing sites to create our listings. When you see the BidFind logo on a participating site, you know that all their items are searchable.


Requirements:


1 - You must provide a link back to BidFind.

2 - You need the MegaList.php file located in this zip file.

3 - You need an account with www.bidfind.com (Free of charge)


Installation is simple. Upload the megalist.php file to your root auction directory, create an account at www.bidfind.com and provide them with the link to your megalist. Nothing more, nothing less.


So maybe it is time to get on to the auctions and ask why they are not making use of this, as it does not cost them anything. So I am wondering if there is any other reason other than they do not know about it.

Maybe if each person who puts out the question to their selected auctions can come back and let us know what they say?

Thank you for that excellent summary H&V - I now have a link to it, and I think I shall start going through the bigger sites that I don't have marked off as included and ask them. I can sure use help, though...

purple_reading_giraffe wrote (View Post): › Thank you for that excellent summary H&V - I now have a link to it, and I think I shall start going through the bigger sites that I don't have marked off as included and ask them. I can sure use help, though...

How is it going with the auctions, they reporting any problems or is it they just did not know?

Or any sign ups to the search sites?

Quote: › So maybe it is time to get on to the auctions and ask why they are not making use of this, as it does not cost them anything. So I am wondering if there is any other reason other than they do not know about it.

I think it's probably that they don't know about it, or know about it but don't think these sites are all that useful -- because potential buyers don't know about them or uses them either. Bidfind has always been around , but do shoppers use it to search for items - No, they use Google.

IMHO We have to start looking at this from a shoppers point of view. An aggregated search is only useful is shoppers can easily get it.

No aggregated search is going to show every single listing that everyone has because lots of people don't know a darn thing about metatags and keywords and if they're not using them they're not going to show up.

Once some of these auction sites do upgrades that should help as it will improve their loading times. But what will really help is when they get more sellers who are filling up their site with keywords and links in their listings.

That is why, on the aggregated search I created, for instance, that includes all these auction sites iOffer tends to show up ahead of the others - because it has a lot of listings, and because it is apparently geared toward having search engines find it better. It's been around longer and has probably has a chance to fine-tune things.

In conclusion, I feel that the main objective for a search is to put it where our customers will find it - even if it means emailing it to them. Social networking sites and forums where people talk about shopping would be another place to broadcast it. It doesn't even matter if all of my stuff or your stuff shows up. What's more important is that shoppers are lured away from ebay and learn that there are other places out there.

Off topic a bit - I noticed lately that ebay listings haven't been overtaking Google searches as much as they used to. I wonder why. I searched for some things I'm selling today and some of them actually came up on the first page. I was surprised, because that is usually full of ebay stuff, at least in my categories.

Discussion of something going on with eBay and Google occurred here:
http://www.powersellersunite.com/viewtopic.php?t=18148

Can't quite tell WHAT is going on, but something is.

I'm sorry H&V - I haven't contacted any sites yet... taxes and invoices and real life distracted me and I spaced it. I'm much better at instant response

I think part of me knows they're not going to answer me anyway... Noted on my desktop, though. Lord I have a splitting headache all day today.

purple_reading_giraffe wrote (View Post): › Discussion of something going on with eBay and Google occurred here: http://www.powersellersunite.com/viewtopic.php?t=18148 Can't quite tell WHAT is going on, but something is. I'm sorry H&V - I haven't contacted any sites yet... taxes and invoices and real life distracted me and I spaced it. I'm much better at instant response I think part of me knows they're not going to answer me anyway... Noted on my desktop, though. Lord I have a splitting headache all day today.

The same thing happened before, ebay and google had a spat and started spitting dummies. Sales dropped twenty five percent for some of those on the UK powerseller board, never found out how far it spread, but it lasted a few month. Hopefully this will last just as long.

This is one hell of an opportunity if the boycott gets the word out, the way it can and google and ebay keep it up.

Hope the headache eases off, if its tension lay back close your eyes and rest your face muscles. Takes a while to get it right but you instantly feel results.

And as for the questioning of the auctions delegate it to Fairshake, they are pushing themselves on the forums. It would give us a gauge of how well they are going.

I got an email the other day that plunderhere has been bought up but it did not say by who. Never had time to check it out.

An english guy who used to own bidz.or (now defunct) bought it. It's also up and running in the UK.

PA-Antiques wrote (View Post): › An english guy who used to own bidz.or (now defunct) bought it. It's also up and running in the UK.

Thanks for that, was not sure if the spammers had started in on the alternative auctions or something.

purple_reading_giraffe wrote (View Post): › Most of the sites included in bidhopper are independent sites most of us here have never heard of. I wish I could persuade them to include the larger sites they currently don't. If you have my spreadsheet, there is a column to the far right where I put a Y if the site is 'bidhopped'. There are a LOT of sites in the sheet where the only info so far is that I found them on Bidhopper (copy and paste of the scrolling list of sites on the left) - so they are Format:Bidhopper until I check them out (if ever). HiBidder Plunderhere USiFF WeBidz and YourHighBid are bidhopped according to their sites and Bidhopper. Those are the only ones (whose names members of this site would be looking for) that are bidhopped as far as I can tell. I cannot tell what sites may be on BidFind as they didn't provide a list, and didn't answer my email.

I think the obscure sites are all using the PHP ProBid auction package and both bidfind and bidhopper may somehow be linked to them.

I tried to get into the probid forum but it is only for users of the system, so can't find anything more other than the two upload packages for each search engine were made by the same person.