Now that there’s been just about a week for the bugs to be worked out, I’ve decided to go through with updating my Build a Niche Store websites to the new eBay Partner Network program. I want this done well before the end of April deadline, after all. No point in procrastinating and losing out on sales.

I’m starting this out with one of my lower performing sites, one that doesn’t currently get a lot of traffic. This way I can learn about any road hazards before dealing with a site that has more visitors.

The update should be very easy. According to the instructions, I should be able to just upload the files, go to update.php on the relevant site, and it should be done, aside from entering my new affiliate information.

So of course I’m backing everything up first. Files, database, the whole thing. It’s the most sensible thing to do in any website update.

Deep breath and here goes…

Everything looks great! Not at all surprised really, since I gave it a few days, but upgrading any site is a bit nervewracking. So much that could go wrong.

There are a lot of changes in here. The interface is completely different, but it looks good:

Now I just have to figure out how to plug in my affiliate information. That looks easy enough to do, just by going over to the Setup page, with another tab open so that I can create a campaign ID over at the eBay Partner Network for this particular site. Always nice to be able to track the commission sources, after all.

I have my affiliate links cloaked, so for a quick check I uncloak. Sure enough, I can see my campaign ID in the links.

I have to admit, it’s a bit tricky getting used to the new terminology. I had to look in the highly useful User Manual to be certain that my initial guess that the campaign ID was in fact what I needed for tracking. I’m more used to affiliate IDs, after all, or Commission Junction’s PID.

One more little step: removing my old sitemap. The new version includes a sitemap, so I don’t need the old mod. And with the updated pages the old one isn’t even functioning, so it goes beyond redundancy. But that’s incredibly easy, and I could even switch the page off if I so chose.

Believe it or not, it was really just that simple. I may have time tonight to start a couple new sites even, although I may instead choose to work on some more of my article marketing which is my usual for this early part of the month. So much I want to do, so little time!

But when I create a store I will show the step by step process here. Probably won’t actually do it for at least a few days since I’ll have to research it, buy the domain and get things set up so it functions first. Usual little delays. But I’m really excited about the changes.

The hardest part no doubt is going to be finding the occasional eBay links on my non-BANS sites! I know they’re out there, and now I have to do something about them.