But, regarding the redirects and ePN, since I can't get into the forum, I can't get to the patch. Can someone email me the patch? Enter something in the login area and it'll take you to a page where you'll find "forgot your password" info. The last question is: since BANS is no longer supported, abandoned by its creators, should I invest in phpBay/Zon and change my sites to that? YES! I used BANS - happily and successfully - but I've made the switch. The BANS forum folks are helpful, creative, and nice, but I think it's best to use a program that has support. Especially for those of us who are not into the programming side of things. You might even make more money if you make the change. Good luck.

I appreciate your concern, but I assure that any of my redirect links that may appear on any domain other than the one they belong on do not go to eBay.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------- Thin isn't thin unless it's OneLung Thin

I believe my post tells you exactly why your links are showing up incorrectly in SE results in violation of ToS. Simply setting to permanent redirects will not solve your problem once your urls are indexed. Again, my post explains exactly why this is. Its pretty obvious from the posts on this thread that not all people understand this. So the purpose of the thread was to explain why the behaviour occurs.

If you are using a redirect page, simply ban it in your .htaccess file from all bots. This will help eliminate any links that may currently be indexed in SERP's.

To clarify: Forcing the 301 should solve the problem of search engines indexing your redirect URLs in the future. If the SEs already have some of your redirect URLs indexed, you need to employ some kind of referrer checking to stop any clicks on them from going to eBay. ePN says you have until June 8 to take care of this problem, but it may take months for the links to drop-off the SEs index.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------- Thin isn't thin unless it's OneLung Thin

Just to clarify the issue; as this thread muddies the waters a little.

The issue is purely down to how search engines index your site.

When a user clicks a link on your site to your redirect script; the following happens:
- Their browser will request the page (as it doesn't know its a redirect script).
- The browser will pass a referer where the link was found (e.g. http://www.mysite.org/mypage.htm)
- Your redirect script tells the browser, you need to go somewhere else (at this stage it doesn't matter if its 301 [permanent] or 302 [temporary]). Lets assume this is a roverized link.
- The browser will request the roverized link, passing the same referer as before (http://www.mysite.org/mypage.htm)
- EPN responds with a 301 permanent redirect to the final ebay target
- The browser will request the final ebay target, passing the same referer as before (http://www.mysite.org/mypage.htm)

Now; lets assume the browser is a search engine indexing your site and likes the content of the final ebay target.

Scenario 1
- If you have redirected initially with a 302 [temporary] redirect, the search engine will attribute your original redirect script URL with the content on the final target ebay page.

Scenario 2
- If you redirected initially with a 301 [permanent] redirect, the search engine uses the url of the final ebay target as this is the last part in the permanent redirect chain for the indexed content.

This is where the issue lies: assume Joe User searches on the search engine for the keywords found on the final target ebay page.

In scenario 1, the user clicks on the link on the search engine. The search engine directs them to your redirect page.
- Their browser will request the page (as it doesn't know its a redirect script).
- The browser will pass a referer where the link was found (e.g. http://www.google.com/search?q=keyword)
- Your redirect script tells the browser, you need to go somewhere else. Lets assume this is a roverized link.
- The browser will request the roverized link, passing the same referer as before (http://www.google.com/search?q=keyword)
- EPN responds with a 301 permanent redirect to the final ebay target
- The browser will request the final ebay target, passing the same referer as before (http://www.google.com/search?q=keyword)

So, in this scenario, the user is effectively going via your redirect script which means your campaign ids are then being attributed to content on the search engine due to the referer. In other words, you are using your campaign ids on domains you do not own nor have control over (clear violation of ToS)

In Scenario 2, the search engine has attributed the final ebay page to the content so the user will simply go straight to the final ebay page when they click the link in the search results.

You can offset this to some extent by adding your redirect page's URL to your robots.txt disallow list; but this depends upon the indexer to respect that disallow list.

Good practice suggests that you (or the tools you use) should:
- disallow the redirect script in robots.txt
- check referer when requested to ensure you only roverize the clickthrough if the referer is from a domain you own or control (otherwise just pass it through unroverized)
- always use 301 permanent redirects for offsite redirects.

Julia_N, thanks for both updates.

For those affiliates who are non-programmers and are inadvertently violating the TOS, any way that ePN can help identify problems before pulling the plug will no doubt be appreciated. Working with partners as much as possible is always a good approach.

Thank you.

While we've got a pink in the room, I'd like to ask: Is there any possibility of getting a report in our Dashboard to let us know if we're sending any referer-less traffic or any non-compliant 302s? It would help us catch anything we might have missed in updating for compliance.

-- The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.

Google generally obeys robots.txt files, so blocking your redirect page should help.

Has anyone addressed the page rank and indexing issue here? 301's will transfer all your page rank assigned to your redirector to eBay and instructs the SE to index the destination, which in this case is a rover link. Isn't that a path to self destruction? Your redirect pages get deindexed and replaces with your rover links. ???

Seems to me that blocking the offsite referrers woukd make more sense.

And finally how are all the poor non-programmers using EKs and such supposed to deal with this?

One of the mods on the BANS forum has confirmed that as long as cloaking isn't enabled then I shouldn't be in breach of EPN T & C's.

Of course I may get a warning for referrer issues (I still don't have a clue what that means).

Yeah, I need to check that, but like I say, I am sick of it all... and I haven't quite got my head around the issue yet. So wait, the concern is that in doing the redirect, the referrer might be lost? I am pretty sure that the address of the redirect page is still supplied at least, i.e. EPN can see the domain the referral came from, but I'd better look into it I suppose...

I am not so sure about Google indexing redirect pages, I mean, they are empty?! Or did I misunderstand the issue?

There's no telling, but we can be sure it'll be something. Over on the seller's forum, someone started a thread titled "eBay made no changes today" -- he thought it was newsworthy. Turned out he was wrong, though.

-- The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.