Auction Site Ready - Need "Re-list" Terribly - Page 2

GateKeeper · July 14th, 2006, 06:16 PM

I wonder which would be the better choice for SEO purposes? As the site grows, if the default is "Ads Only", the site would appear to be "growing" content without anything really having to be added. I say this because the ad will be new content, but with the Ads Only set, so would the category and the category intro page.
Food for thought!

Sybaris · July 17th, 2006, 10:14 AM

Your site as a whole is looking very smooth now very nice indeed, i tried clicking to where i wanted to be, It only took a few clicks there was plenty of things to keep me interested on the journey and on the whole was easy and enjoyable.

Now you need some actual sellers and buyers

but like we both said advertising is the key....

GateKeeper · July 17th, 2006, 10:57 AM

Sybaris,
Did you check out the optioin to "Show Ads Only" or "Show All Resorts" ? I think this makes a big difference for the various types of visitors. Newbies will see the whole list of resorts (as will the search engines), but having the choice to trim down the display to only those resorts with ads seems a real benefit.
I guess I'm a bit pleased since I've never programmed much with javascript or cookies before, so the combo was quite rewarding.
BTW, I'm not "advertising" yet because I can't really launch in good conscience while the capability of relisting auctions isn't available. I'm counting/hoping that this will be a feature in a near future release. Quite a gamble I know. My backup is to convert the templates to regular ads, but this has consequences for my business model. All the same, I appreciate your feedback.

GateKeeper · July 26th, 2006, 12:33 PM

The issue of displaying ads on a non vBulletin or non Photopost page was raised a few weeks ago. The recommendation was to use RSS feeds (nicely done by Chuck) to perform this function. The example auction for Hotel Melia Playa Conchal in Guanacaste Costa Rica is a perfect example of how to apply the RSS feed for a specific category to a non-Photopost/non-vBulletin page.

GateKeeper · August 8th, 2006, 08:10 AM

The mere number of categories was proving a challenge for even a dedicated server to keep up with the requests.
I modified the index.php and indexhead.tmpl files to serve up the categories in a drop down list instead of tasking the server to repeat the same queries over and over again just to show the categories.
Formatting aside (I can alway make the drop down list look better), I am interested in feedback on performance, ease of use, particularly with the category selection, i.e. Timeshare Auctions by Country or State, etc.
I also put a number of the menu choices from the Classifieds menu in a DHTML drop down from the main navigation bar. What do you think?
Any feed back would be appreciated.

GateKeeper · August 30th, 2006, 12:59 PM

It took a while for the ball to get rolling but we finally have some folks starting auctions using the PhotoPost Classifieds. We have the full suite of ReviewPost (timeshare reviews), Classifieds, and vBAdvanced running. Using the latter we put together this page for just active timeshare auctions. Previous posts have links to other pages on our site that show off some of the other hacks and standard features. The ones we like a lot are to our main timeshare auctions page where you can choose from our fairly large selection of categories using a drop down list, and to our detailed category pages which allow you to choose to see all resorts or just resorts with ads. The drop down list in our main page improves performance significantly and allows us to use multi level displays for our lower categories. Of course we had to put together a page to show off the RSS feeds for our timeshare auctions as well!

GateKeeper · November 17th, 2006, 05:21 AM

Think you can't drive some real integration using RSS feeds? Check out our Resort Reviews (this is just an example). If you scroll below the resort description, you'll see a section for "Member Auctions". This section takes advantage of the RSS feeds Chuck put together some time ago for the Photopost classified ads. I modified it to make the feed "product" specific so that it feeds only ads for each review post product accordingly. Mix it up with a dash of RSS2HTML and viola!
Photopost is great stuff!

GateKeeper · November 17th, 2006, 05:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GateKeeper

Think you can't drive some real integration using RSS feeds? Check out our Resort Reviews (this is just an example). If you scroll below the resort description, you'll see a section for "Member Auctions". This section takes advantage of the RSS feeds Chuck put together some time ago for the Photopost classified ads. I modified it to make the feed "product" specific so that it feeds only ads for each review post product accordingly. Mix it up with a dash of RSS2HTML and viola!
Photopost is great stuff!

Marriott's Fairway Villas at Seaview

GateKeeper · May 5th, 2007, 11:15 AM

With 2.6 under our belt, we have finally launched our Timeshare Auction website!!! Thanks to Chuck and his team, we now have the feature set that allows us to promote the photopost classified section of our site with confidence (and some pride)!
The relist auction requirement was paramount and with the addition of this feature, we are able to fully promote this section of our site.
We modified a number of areas including the index and category views to fit our viewing requirements, but the best part of PhotoPost Classifieds have been left in tact.
Thanks again Chuck!