Comments on: Latest eBay Partner (EPN) Expirations Causing Controversy

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 22:22:56 +0000

EPN must have consulted with the Google Adsense team…. totally un-professional…..

It just goes to show that if you are going to play the EPN game now… (and I’m talking about regular affiliate practice…not black-hat) you better spread out your efforts on different accounts to limit your liability……

Too bad eBay. Shame on you.

By: Keith@Web Affiliate Program

Keith@Web Affiliate Program — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 22:39:57 +0000

A significant amount of my income is from the eBay Partner Network. I never heard of this issue till dropping by here. It hasn’t affected me so far (crossing fingers).

The way I do business on my eBay sites is above board. I should do well with the new changes in the commission structure as well.

Great article. Thanks for the info.

By: Keith@Web Affiliate Program

Keith@Web Affiliate Program — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 22:42:57 +0000

…added to Delicious :)

By: Eric

Eric — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:18:59 +0000

When people said they were getting booted from EPN I always assumed they were pulling some “tricky” stuff so I was kind of glad they were getting booted. That would make it better for folks that were doing things on the “up and up”.

Boy was I wrong. I do everything “by the book” and yet the rug has been pulled without warning.

Total devastation.

By: Ajus

Ajus — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:27:17 +0000

I have had great success with affiliate networks like CJ, Shareasale, Neverblueads as they have tons of offers to choose from. Lots of great affiliate networks to choose from and RELIABLE ones at that.

Not like eBay or Google who scam affiliates.

By: Dannielle

Dannielle — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:31:04 +0000

I just finished reading through the thread at ebay’s forum you linked to and it suprises me that they are offering the banned affiliates no real info on why they were banned.

I can understand a pay per click network like adsense wanting to save adwords buyers money from losses on invalid clicks but for a cpa network it makes no sense at all?

By: DrDre703

DrDre703 — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:47:15 +0000

Lots of people have been banned today according to the BANS forum. Not sure why yet??

Now we know why they call it BANS :-)

By: Grabarz

Grabarz — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 02:39:57 +0000

I’ve been unhappy with EPN ever since the CJ jump anyway. My revenue compared to the same time frame over 3 years has shown that while my traffic has continued to climb, the revenue drop from the switch lost us over 50% of our earnings from the previous two years. Every month as my traffic grew on my NON-BANS!!! sites, so did my revenue on CJ. As soon as we did the switch I proceded to have the worst income I’ve ever had, even when we FIRST signed up on CJ. So, we’ve known the glory days were over. Me, the optomistic, proclaimed that ePN was just fixing everything, while my wife said it was DEAD. I hate the fact that dickweed Steve has just made my pessimistic wife the correct party.

By: MrVyper

MrVyper — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 06:16:13 +0000

what a crock of $*!+. I got the axe from EPN and I didn’t ever stuff cookies or do any black hat stuff.

WTF ??

By: andrew_b

andrew_b — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 06:51:44 +0000

Thats hugely bad considering there are a ton of people out there making their living off ebays affiliate program. I just had a buddy of mine that got me into the ebay buisness and he has around 300 ebay sites that makes him a huge amount of money and he got the letter yesterday. At first he though it was some spam stuff and I didnt know to believe it or not.

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 07:00:38 +0000

I knew this was going to happen once eBay took the affiliate program in-house which is why I dragged my feet on changing my links until after the move was finalized. Even with PepperJam, my earnings are seriously down as compared to when the affiliate program was through CJ.

One thing I did see as a warning sign was the rise in popularity of BANS software after Shoemoney’s Auction Ads tanked and he ditched it off on Patrick Gavin.

Prior to that, eBay affiliate was a secret tool for most of us who knew how to code for the API and RSS feed implementations but once BANS came into focus, all of a sudden there were hundreds or thousands of crappy, no-content sites being put out by the noobs at DigitalPoint who follow anything to make a buck but they’re usually a day late and a dollar short.

I’ve always used eBay to monetize my content driven sites and I have to admit most of the BANS sites make me wonder why most of these people think they deserve search engine traffic, pagerank and monetization for putting a script on a domain and spamming blogs for backlinks.

I get the impression that EPN is targeting BANS sites and cookie stuffers but as I said in the article, if they do it using an automated algorithm without a human eyeing the sites, it’s a recipe for disaster.

By: MoneyBlog

MoneyBlog — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 11:34:01 +0000

totally un-professional…..Too bad eBay. Shame on you!!!!!

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:35:09 +0000

Looks like EPN is having second thoughts about their actions and allowing some publishers to be re-instated.

Check this thread..

http://www.code4gold.com/forums/index.php?topic=16059.0

By: swollenpickles

swollenpickles — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 11:23:51 +0000

Are publishers that have been expired able to get back on via pepperjam?

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:46:13 +0000

I’m pretty sure they can use PepperJam but don’t quote me on that. I think it depends on if EPN banned domains or if they banned accounts.

However, I am certain that somebody using a different domain that wasn’t in the EPN system could use PepperJam.

By: advanced search

advanced search — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:29:08 +0000

This is all a bit confusing. E-bay is trying to protect its integrity by forsing out affiliates?

Sounds a little Cuukoo

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:46:36 +0000

eBay has been making alot of waves recently and not just with affiliates. They’re imposing new rules on sellers and I know those new rules have a lot of sellers seriously pissed off.

If some other company could offer a good challenge to eBay, the opportunity is golden at the moment.

By: Giovanni

Giovanni — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 01:17:49 +0000

These American companies are so stupid. They treat their customers like dirt then treat affiliates like dirt.

I know here in Europe, we hate Ebay becaue it is a junkyard or flea market.

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By: Aerigo

Aerigo — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:29:34 +0000

and now they have caught a big fish to fry for cookie stuffing.

By: Melissa Gomez

Melissa Gomez — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 02:16:45 +0000

This ebay stuff is getting out of hand. I think it’s about time they either gave the program back to CJ or just close it all together.

By: Hazymuth

Hazymuth — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 03:03:37 +0000

yea, they ban my account in epn but thats ok — I will use amazon from now on.

By: Booliam

Booliam — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 05:09:38 +0000

It has since been implemented in most other blogging tools.. but spam is big deal from blogger

By: Zen Archery

Zen Archery — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:30:59 +0000

A European here…

Please don’t stereotype Europeans…

I am an active E bay buyer and pissed off affiliate who got the termination email today.

But have never heard ebay described as a junkyard or flea market by everyone in Europe…lol

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 18:39:51 +0000

Sorry to hear you were banned but in regards to your reply to Giovnni’s comment, it’s not just Europeans that see eBay as an online flea market, most Americans see it as a flea market as well.

btw, I’m first generation American of European descent and nobody in my family would ever buy or sell on eBay.

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 18:40:55 +0000

btw, Zen Archery, have you tried signing up to PepperJam? They also have the eBay affiliate program. It’s just an alternative.

By: seola

seola — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:39:12 +0000

I was wiped out also, is the post 13 for real, do some users really get the ir accounts back, I was not banned, my account was closed.

Speaking of amazon, amazon sucks, they have 1 day cookie, i never earned any money from them

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 21:31:37 +0000

@seola, I think only a few people actually were able to recover their accounts from EPN. It’s wortha try if you’re earning well with it.

Of course, there’s alway PepperJam as an alternative to use the eBay affiliate program. However, even the PJN side has been getting ugly with PJN rep Mandy Foley sending a generic warning email (in a gif not text so it can’t easily be copy/pasted) to all PJN publishers.

Honestly, I’m a little sick and tired of eBay and EPN harping on all us legitimate publishers because of a few bad apples. They’ve lost my traffic.

Also, Amazon doesn’t suck. I used to think that but my Amazon earnings are 10x my eBay earnings since I started pulling eBay links off my sites.

By: Crystal

Crystal — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:26:10 +0000

Don’t want to be the one who told you so here, but when ebay left CJ, I told everyone that they are gonna get your commissions from you and you won’t even know it.

By: Rolf

Rolf — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 06:49:40 +0000

If you google “Skip McGrath,” he has a blog that’s targeted toward eBay sellers and his online newsletter has a “niche of the month” section. I often use his blog as a starting point to research new niches.

By: Vlasta Oritz

Vlasta Oritz — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:24:09 +0000

Oh dear, I was going to start using BANS to make a few sites but now I see this and I’m not going to touch anything affiliated with eBay.