TWP Auctions 2.0 has been released! TWP Auctions now supports the eBay Partner Network. If you’re running an older version of TWP Auctions, then you’ll need to update to 2.0 before eBay closes down their old CJ program on May 1st 2008. Yes, it’s still free! Get it here!

Apple have just updated Safari for Windows to v3.1. Yet another browser that we’ll all need to check our sites with.

As of April the 1st (what a date to choose!), eBay will be running their own in-house affiliate program without Commission Junction. For those of us using the RSS feed to populate our sites, there’s no real need to panic - Kelvin (from BANS), seems to have the inside story, and says that the eBay RSS feed will remain active - so hopefully all we’ll need to do is replace our CJ PIDs with a new eBay ID number. Looks like April 1st will be a busy day for a few of us :p

I’m reluctant to give away all the good stuff for free - but I’ve added nofollow to all the links generated by TWP Auctions (my free eBay affiliate script). It’s not really a big deal, but so many people jumped up and down about wanting it that I couldn’t resist. I’ve fixed the xhtml validation issues too. Get it here.

If you’ve recently updated your Wordpress site, you might have noticed that there’s a trailing slash missing from your page urls. Pages are now domain.com/page instead of domain.com/page/. The folks at Wordpress don’t seem to think this is a very big deal, but for anyone with even the slightest interest in SEO and duplicate content - then you’ll be tearing your hair out trying to fix it (at least I was). I messed around with the Wordpress link-template.php file, and fixed the problem, but also created a new one while I was at it. Just as I was about to give in and learn to live without my beloved trailing slash, I found a simple plugin from Peter Claus Lamprecht that totally fixes the problem. Unless you can read German, you’ll never find the plugin on his site - but if you click here, then it’s all your. Thanks Peter!

eBay Australia have finally decided to increase their commissions - they haven’t announced the new payout percentages, but anything has to be better than the 20% they’re paying us now!

“Good news, early April we will be increasing the eBay.com.au affiliate program pricing to continue to reward and recognise quality traffic & incentivise further growth from our affiliates. We’ll be publishing the new payment structure very soon - do look out for further communication from us.”

I’ve been using CoverAction Pro for the last few days to create ebook covers and software boxes - it’s absolutely brilliant, and is really simple to use. What you get for your money ($97) is a huge selection of Photoshop actions that allow you to create high quality ebook covers, paperback covers, business cards, software boxes, CJ jewel cases, and DVD discs/covers.

To create your own ebook or software box, all you need to do is design a cover in Photoshop and click ‘play’ on whichever CoverAction Pro action that you want to use - then you sit back and watch the magic happen. The result is a lovely high resolution image, good enough for the web AND for printing.

Highly recommended! More info here.

After running Chitika’s RPU ads on 2 of my sites for nearly a month, I’m yet to see any real change in CTR. But I’m not giving up yet. We all love a good graph, so here’s my Chitika CTR since I implemented the RPU ads (without revealing any real numbers of course!) - as you can see, it’s all over the place:

I run a few eBay affiliate sites that pull auction listings from the USA, Australia, and the UK. In the last few months I’ve noticed a huge spike in Australian traffic, but not much extra cash ends up in my pocket. Why? Because eBay USA pay 50% of the total fee per auction - and eBay Australia pay a pathetic 20% …

I’d like to create more local Australian sites, but with the commissions the way they are now, I’d have to make more than twice the amount of sales to equal my US based stores. Pffft…