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Has anyone else received a notice recently from EPN about site transparency and referring URLs?

I just got this "Thank you for being a part of eBay Partner Network. As you know, we are constantly optimizing our program to pay our highest quality partners the best commissions possible. As we do this, we've been placing a greater emphasis on transparency with our publishers. With the eBay Partner Network, when we're talking about transparency, we mean primarily the ability for us to determine how your traffic is generated and from where you send clicks to us. Knowing how you promote eBay is a basic part of building a healthy, trusted relationship with you.
In most cases, ensuring that we get referring URLs for the clicks you send is fairly straight forward. However we've found that with some integrations, business models, and linking structures, transparency is decreased. The reason we are contacting you today is because your account and corresponding traffic have been identified as sending a very high number of visitors and clicks that do not include a referring URL."

I use several different programs to build sites with EZAWB being one of them. Does the EZAWB program create the referring URLs they are talking about?  I am not a programmer and don't know how to figure out if these referring URLs are being sent or not from my EZAWB sites.  The email went on to say that if I don't correct the problem within 3 weeks I'll loss my EPN account.  My sites are finally starting to give me some profit so I really don't want to loss them.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[EZ Affiliate Blog]

Daisy,

EZAWB does not hide the referring url.

Jorge

"I just did some "bad referrer" simulations. I'm sorry, but you need to get rid of all your links created with EZAWB.  Robots scrape the links on these pages and store them to be processed later. When they get around to processing the data, they end up clicking all the links contained within. According to my testing, doing this sends the link to eBay and is logged as a blank referrer.
 
You also need to get rid of all the eBay links and banners you created with the ePN dashboard tools. They pose the same security risk as the EZAWB software."

This is advice that I received from a programmer who I consulted regarding the EPN transparency link situation regarding a letter that I received from EPN last week.  EPN stated that my transparency exposure was 75% and since EZAWB sites make up a large portion of the sites I have on EPN, I am inclined to believe there may be a problem here.

I have liked the EZAWB program and have made some money using it to build sites.  But do want to risk my EPN account with this problem.  It seems the problem is not in your program specificly, but is related to a leakage somehow that is allowed.  Can you please respond and tell me how to fix this problem so that I can continue to use EZAWB as a website builder for EPN sites?

[EZ Affiliate Blog]

If you are worried about EZAWB creating a problem; you can remove the eBay portion from your template and add the ebay feed manually directly from them but you may still have the same issue since that still happens with code directly from their tools...

I've had the exact same problem with sites not even built with EZ Affiliate... 

Jorge

"I just did some "bad referrer" simulations. I'm sorry, but you need to get rid of all your links created with EZAWB.  Robots scrape the links on these pages and store them to be processed later. When they get around to processing the data, they end up clicking all the links contained within. According to my testing, doing this sends the link to eBay and is logged as a blank referrer.
 

perhaps you can ask EBay, if they can Id a particular site that is at issue, it would seem that you may be victim to a bad spider, I have had spiders crawl huge amounts of data sucking up bandwidth and causing other problems. Secondly, EBay may not have this transparency thing worked out yet, so keep good communications with them, the problem could very easily be on their end. I can appreciate the fear of losing you accounts.  But not throwing the baby out with the bath water, could be advised here.

Good luck!

I just found out more about this problem and it may be with 302 redirects.  Read the ebay forum article here http://www.ebaypartnernetworkblog.com/en/news/using-301-redirects-rather-than-302/

I know EZAWB uses 302 redirects because I can see them when looking at the code on one of my pages but don't know how to fix it so they are now 301 instead. Someone said that you have to use  "  header (”Location: /foo.php”); without any additional parameters defaults to a 302 redirect. Make sure to use: header(”Location: /foo.php”,TRUE,301); to explicitly redirect with a 301 redirect."

I can't find where in the EZAWB code this is because some code is encytped.  Could you guys please investigate this and write a fix like the one described above.  I only have until June 8 to fix all this or I will most likely loss my EPN account.  My EZAWB sites are my best income producers so up until now I really liked your product and have turned a few others on to it but if this does not get fixed I can't recommend it any more.

Please help!

[EZ Affiliate Blog]

The redirect in the EZAWB program can be bypassed by taking off the ebay listings from EZAWB and adding them directly from the ebay tools. The reason we use the redirect is to protect your commissions.

Jorge

But the 302 redirects are now threating my commissions!  Can't you change them to 301 redirects? I'm not a programer and that is why I bought your easy website builder.  What do you mean by taking off the ebay listing from EZAWB? Remove the EPN champaign code from the site config page?  I only use ebay listings on my site. What ebay tool do I use? Where do I put it?  I've watched the videos but they were not helpful and still talked about use a Commission Junction ID but EPN is no longer on Commission Junction. I have version 3.0 not 2.5 like in the videos.

[EZ Affiliate Blog]

You can see how to take the ebay listings of at:

http://www.ezaffiliatewebsitebuilder.com/eBay-Affiliate-Forum/index.php/topic,16.msg1510.html#msg1510

That did not tell me how to take the ebsy lisitngs off or if it does I don't understand it.  This is not so easy if it doesn't work right!!!!  Why can't the 302 redirects be changed to 301s?  Like ebay suggest so I don't use my account!!!!!  Help!!!!

[EZ Affiliate Blog]

Ebay has never had a problem with the software redirects; if you want a custom solution please PM me for pricing.

Jorge

Hi Jorge,
   Got the same problem. Not sure how to make EPN happy anymore.
I think it very Pirate like how they make us walk the plank to tell them where the gold is.
Wondering, does the RSS provide a 302 response?
It seems EPN wants to get in everybodies pants so they to can create new results for themselves.
Funny how eBay's changes in the last year have copied your program somewhat?
Is there any updates for your program in the works?
looks like I might lose them as affiliate since I have no clue how to change the response code.
I have only used your program in this EPN Program.
Your program has served me well, I hope it can continue.

[EZ Affiliate Blog]

If you get the RSS directly from eBay I am not sure if it would generate a 302 response.

I have an update planned but that will be to actually take eBay off and make the software more universal.

You can take off the eBay listing generated by EZAWB and add their html directly.

Jorge

Hi Jorge,
  Thats good to know. I did find a cart that worked.

Here is what the stats look like, I think I'm reading it correct:

HTTP Status codes    HTTP Status codes* Hits Percent Bandwidth
302 Moved temporarily (redirect) 11766 93.4 % 4.60 MB
403 Forbidden 818 6.4 % 6.10 MB
500 Internal server Error 4 0 % 0
301 Moved permanently (redirect) 4 0 % 1.78 KB