David Fiske A subtle blend of affiliate marketing and web development

At 1134hrs today, a new update was released.

Prices have started to stabilise now so the next few weeks should see few price changes.

Some further development has occurred on the Compare Sat Nav front.
 
Firstly the out of stock notification has been rolled out completely in this update. This is so far deterring people from clicking on prices only to find out they are unavailable.

Secondly, I am moving everything over to the Compare Sat Nav server in the next week or two.

I have wanted to do this for a while and have decided to make the leap. It will not cost anything extra due to the way I now maintain the site (file formats, etc.). Plus, if the comparison resides on the Compare Sat Nav server, it should have SEO advantages.

Another benefit is the fact that the site navigation will update itself. Also, visitors should notice a slight speed increase as they will deal with one server instead of two.

The negative side is the work required. All the merchants have to agree to the move so may lose some retailers. I have 3 out of the 22 secured but need some more to make it work!

The transition will last around one month. The old site will be taken down at the end of February 2007. The Google sitemap for it will be removed as soon as the Compare Sat Nav sitemap is created.

The old pages will be edited to redirect to the new pages.

The new search will be uploaded in the next week and populated over the next two weeks. Feeds will have to be edited to account for the new tracking codes.

Another change looms too. Updates will be switched from Mondays to Fridays so that prices are ready for the weekend. There is a small trend for visitor counts to increase on the weekend. Yesterday saw the equivalent of three days worth of visitors. However, the prices were nearly a week old and therefore there would probably be no sales.

As for the progress of the other two sites, these are continuing and should be launched within the next week or so.