WordBay was designed to make it simple and quick to set up a eBay niche site using Wordpress. Any confusion is probably down to my inability to explain clearly. If anything doesn’t make sense, please let me know!
WordPress installation
If you do not yet have hosting, or a Wordpress blog, see here first, else skip to Installation.
1) Get hosting and get a domain that you want to use for your niche site. You may have the former already, but if not I can recommend BlueHost – I have used them for over a year and am very happy with them. Another popular host is www.GoDaddy.com, who also currently offer .info domains for $1.19 (bargain, or what!?). That’s where I bought www.vintage-point.info (neat, huh?), which I will use throughout as my example.
2) Install the latest version of WordPress in the root directory of your site, or in a subdirectory of an existing site if you prefer. I can’t give detailed instructions on this here, but it should be very simple through the SimpleScripts or Fantastico utilities in your control panel. During installation you will have given your site a name and specified other details. I called my site Vintage Point and added the catchline The home of vintage and retro (very original, I know!). Your WordPress dashboard can then be accessed via http://yoursite.com/wp-admin.
3) I would also immediately suggest the following adjustments to your WordPress setup:
i. Options (or Settings) -> Permalinks - choose Custom and use the following format: /%year%/%postname%/
This will ensure you have SEF urls – though don’t do this on an existing site if you hadn’t already! You’ll mess up all your links! You MUST do this if you want to have a search/results page.
ii. Install a sitemap generator like this one and set it up so that Google is kept up to date about your site, and that your pages are indexed as often as possible, since they will frequently be changing.
iii. Settings/Options -> Discussion – untick “Allow comments” – you probably don’t want user comments generally – there’ll be more spam than it’s worth.
iv. Also, if you are making a dedicated niche site, then you may want to go under Reading and make your front page a default static page, rather than a blog, unless you plan on blogging of course.
4) Find a nice template for your site, I have used Old Lamp, as it fits with my vintage-retro theme, though if you visit my site, it’s still unfinished probably, this is just by way of demonstration, you will need to do a bit of customizing if you want to make a proper BANS-style niche site, like getting rid of some of the sidebar stuff etc.
5) It also helps to join eBay ( 
) and you MUST be a member of the eBay Partner Network if you want to earn money from WordBay!
Installation
WordBay is installed like any other Wordpress plugin.
1) Download the latest package from the downloads page.
2) Upload the whole directory into your wordpress plugins directory (usually, yoursite/wp-content/plugins). The plugin must reside in a sub-folder called WordBay as supplied in the zip file, else it WON’T WORK - the obfuscation file (buy.php) won’t be accessible. If you want to move this, you need to change the relevant code in the plugin, but don’t bother for now.
3) Go into the Wordpress admin panel, find Plugins and WordBay should be listed. Click Activate to activate!
4) You are ready to roll!
Using WordBay
1) You need to configure things in the Options/Settings panel, so find Settings -> WordBay and tailor things to your own requirements. Most of the options are self-explanatory so I won’t repeat things here, there are quite detailed instructions in the admin panel, BUT…:
2) You will need to be a LITTLE bit careful with the Number of columns setting because each template is different in width, and there are other possible variations with fonts etc. You may need to edit the wordbay.css file and change “height: ??px;” setting in the .firstlocaleitem class. This height setting should determine the maximum height for each item listed (probably at LEAST 200px, especially if you choose to display the CLICK NOW button) and ensure you get a neat grid, with no text overflowing. You may also find you need to reduce the numbers you have in padding: in the same class from 8px to perhaps 4px. You should also make sure the column count you have chosen works for 1024 x 768 or even smaller resolutions. Realistically, even on my 1440 width display and a fluid-width template I can’t get many more than 3-4 columns in.
3) …if you want to have a search page and use the search box and “expanded search” link, you MUST create a search page. This is done simply by creating a New Page called Product Search, Lamp Search, or whatever else you want. I just called mine Vintage search. You don’t need any content on that page, though you can put some short text or something, like I have.
You must then copy/paste the permalink to this page into the field provided in the admin panel, where there is lots of red text! In my case it is http://www.vintage-point.info/vintage-search/. As it says in the admin panel, and I repeat, you MUST have SEF permalinks activated for this to work!!
4) To insert eBay listings into your posts or pages is really simple: write a new Page or Post in Wordpress. Let’s call it Green vintage lamps and let’s write a few lines of text as our content - “Lovely green vintage lamps”. We are also going to add the following code in the content:
[wordbay]green vintage lamp[/wordbay]
This is our search code, and is pretty self-explanatory, but we will look at this in more detail in a minute. First hit Publish and go to your site and have a look at the post or page you have created.
You should get an eBay listing corresponding to your search terms, and to the parameters you set in the admin panel. If not… erm… go back and check the instructions. They are pretty straightforward, so there should not be anything that can’t be solved. If your search terms are too narrow, that could be a problem, and the category you picked may limit things too. If you chose to display the search box and “expanded search” link, try these to see if they are working.
By the way, you will probably want to change the colours - these are set in the WordBay.css file - hopefully there will be a small tutorial in the future on how to do this, but it should be pretty simple to figure out.
By using eBay search terms and creating new pages/posts for different items/products, you can quickly build up an eBay niche site, and if you have entered your EPN details properly in the admin panel. By the way, when you do this, please consider setting the Generosity quotient to something, well, symbolic (more than 0!) at least. In doing so a small percentage of your impressions will go to the author of WordBay (me), who has invested a lot of time in the project, when I really should have been doing something else, and it would warm the cockles of my heart to see a few pennies as a result of my hard work!
WordBay search terms
As you probably figured out, the tags [wordbay]fish[/wordbay] inserted anywhere in your page body text will search for all products with “fish” in the title. However, it is difficult to target searches with just this, so here are some more tips:
[wordbay]green lamp[/wordbay] - this is logical AND – space between the words means all products with “green” and “lamp” in the title.
[wordbay]”green lamp”[/wordbay] – exact phrase match – means the exact phrase “green lamp” must be found in the product title
[wordbay]lamp -green[/wordbay] – AND NOT – searches for all occurrences of ”lamp”, but minus sign excludes any titles with “green”. No green lamps here!
[wordbay](lamp,“bedside table”)[/wordbay] – OR – brackets apply logical OR (also AND/OR I think) to all items in the brackets, whether single keywords or phrases, i.e. this will find all items with either “lamp” OR “bedside table”.
By the way, supposedly you are not suppose to put spaces after commas or minus signs, so it’s best to stick to that just in case. Here are a couple more examples:
[wordbay](“old lamp”,“old telephone”) -green[/wordbay] – find all items with either “old lamp” or “old telephone” in the title, but excluding “green”.
[wordbay]lamp –(book,CD)[/wordbay] – this will search on “lamp” BUT will exclude “book” and/or “CD”. This type of search is especially useful as it allows you to eliminate most of the junk/irrelevant items like “My Old Lamp CD” and narrow the search down to just actual lamps! Though some of these searches CAn get quite long, and there is supposedly a limit to the number of terms. Just experiment, what can I say.
There is more help on the relevant eBay page.
Well, what are you waiting for!? Get building and get earning!!
hi, i have tried using wordbay 0.96 with WP 2.6.1
after activating wordbay and setting Generosity = 100% (i am not with ebay), columns = 1, and the rest of the settings are left untouched,
i still cant get the ebay listings to be displayed.
the wordbay tags are displayed as is in the published posts..ie
[wordbay]gameboy[/wordbay]
any idea what went wrong?
thanks
sorry…i just realize there’s a clash between wordbay and another plugin i have
the listings are out after i deactivated all other plugins except wordbay
good work with wordbay!
thanks
Spring, sorry for not responding sooner - I was a-holidaying. Glad you got it working, though I couldn’t say why it would clash with other plugins. One of those things I guess. Good advice for other users - it’s always possible that two plugins might clash, so if things go wrong try switching off some plugins and seeing what happens. All the best.
This is a great plugin and I am using it on my newest site http://makeavideo.net/sony-handycams.html
The only problem I am having is getting the search feature to work. I have created a search page as instructed but no matter what term I search for no results are found. I am using WP 2.6.2.
Do you know what the problem may be?
Thanks
Hi, glad you find the plugin useful and good luck with using it!
When I look at your site something is definitely not configured right because you are effectively getting a 404 error, which means it can’t find the right page - have you entered the full URL to the search page in the WordBay options? You should make sure the search URL is set to “http://makeavideo.net/search-for-more-items” in the WordBay Settings under Show search box. I am almost certain something has gone wrong with this.
Also, on a different subject, I’m not sure why your product column is so narrow and overflowing into the search box. Maybe you have tried to have two columns but your content area is simply not wide enough to contain them? Seems to me a one-column display would work best on your site.
Hope this helps… If not let me know.
Okay, I set the columns to one (1) so it looks much better. But I am still having the problem with the search page not being found. I have the correct URL in the Show search box area: http://makeavideo.net/search-for-more-items
Any other suggestions?
Thanks.
I got it to work! I just shortened the name of the page from “search-for-more-items” to “more-items” and it worked. I think I have a plugin installed that removes “unnecessary” words from your URL so it must be affecting the way the URL is read by Wordbay.
I got it to work! I just shortened the name of the page from “search-for-more-items” to “more-items” and it worked. I think I have a plugin installed that removes “unnecessary” words from your URL so it must be affecting the way the URL is read by Wordbay.
Anyway, great plugin!
Crumbs! I’m glad you got that figured out, because I would never have got that in a million years! I thought perhaps you didn’t HAVE a page called that - sometimes people forget to create one, or the permalink is wrong.
I see it working now - all the best with the site!
Hi. I’m getting some odd results. I have Wordbay embedded in a post page for a specific 2 word phrase. Nothing shows up when I view the page. However, when I type the exact same phrase in the (embedded) search box, and the search page displays, I get products. What’s different between using the wordbay tags and the wordbay search?
Also, it looks like ebay stores are not included. Can they be?
Intentional or not, I figured it out. The “regular” listing included minimum bids, the search defaulted minimum bids to zero
Hi, I tested the plugin, it’s a beautiful job!
Thank you!
I only have one question:
Why can I show 2-column product list?
I set the column to 2 in setting page, but in webpage there is only 1 column, Need I change something in somewhere?
Sorry, typo!
Question is :
How can I show 2-column product list?
I already set the column to 2 in setting page, but in webpage there is only 1 column, Need I change something in somewhere?
Hi, glad you like it!
I can’t be sure without seeing it, but that is all you should need to change. However, it may be that the ‘.firstlocaleitem’ class in the CSS file has a height which is too low to accomodate the whole item so it is being forced into one column - maybe try changing the height to a greater number?
Other than, it’s just possible that the padding or margins are too big for your content width and are forcing one column as well.
Let me know if tinkering with those doesn’t solve anything and I’ll try to think what else it might be.
Thank you, I will try that.
Hello,
I love your plugin, but when I chose the show search box, but the search box isn’t showing. All that is showing is the words “Product Search”.
Is that anything I need to put to display the search field?
Sorry to hear you are having problems. I quickly checked to see that there wasn’t a problem with the latest version of the plugin, but it’s working fine on my sites.
That’s a strange one, I haven’t heard that problem before. Are you sure that your CSS is not doing something weird with the <form> or <input> classes? If you look in the HTML, under the H4 header “Product Search” can you see code like:
<form method='get' id='searchform' action='XXXXX'><div><input type='text' value='' name='WBsearch' id='search' />
<input type='submit' id='searchsubmit' value='Search' />
</div>
</form>
…where XXXXX is the link to your WordBay search page (which you have hopefully created)?
I have to admit that this is bad markup on my part, having a DIV with no class or ID - perhaps a parent DIV is passing on some inappropriate settings to the form div and hiding it in some way?
Let me know if it’s not that…!
Hi. Great plugin. I’ve been using it for a little while now, and I have a couple questions/requests. (I thought I posted this once, but I can’t seem to find the post, so maybe not
I’m using the Amazon part of BayRSS to add a bit more pizzazz to the listings. I have the Amazon feed at the top of the page, followed by the Wordbay two column feed. It looks like the Amazon products are more “featured” (since the normal Amazon feed is bigger and has the product rating, etc), followed by a more “normal” store inventory. I really like it - works well. Is there any way this type of combination could be implemented with Wordbay. That would be really slick
(I tried using the AZLite plugin to do the same thing, but it seems to collide with BayRSS. Since I have a number of posts that already use BayRSS I can’t inactivate it, so AZLite is out of the question for now).
I have also used SimplePie on some websites for feeds from other programs (Buy.com, Overstock.com). One really nice feature SimplePie has is the ability to automatically include a .php file when it runs. Inside the file you can do stuff like override text (change “Bid Now” to “Place a Bid”), override fonts, change image sizes, etc. This would be another slick thing to add to WordBay.
Thanks,
Walt
Hi Mark,
Thanks for replying. If I look in the html, the code for the form and submit button is there.. but it just doesn’t show up on the page.. maybe it is some parent div id passing that is messing things up.. but its too messy for me to figure out.. not too good with code.
Hope you can put the search in a div class or id of its own in the next version so I can test it out.
Oh you mentioned in the wordbay.css something about making the corners rounded.. how do you do that?
Thanks for a great plugin! Very much appreciated!
Hi. me again. How should I add Wordbay directly to a template file?
@GreatCoolDeals
Sorry your having this problem. I can’t guarantee it will fix itself if I add a class to the CSS file for the search box. I’m not even sure I want to do that, because I have left the CSS for others to modify for their own site - I am no designer… I would suggest someone who is clued up on CSS (don’t know how much of a CSS-wiz you are, I’m not) has a look at your code to see what settings might be affecting the search box. It sounds to me like the height of the form or div is being set to 0 somewhere, but it’s just a guess…
@DogSupplies
This WAS supposed to be an eBay plugin, so I am not sure if it will ever become an all-singing all-dancing affiliate plugin. I’ve got too many other irons in the fire…!
Yes, the Amazon combination sounds nice. Another way I want to implement a featured item is to grab the visitor’s search keywords that they came to the site with and try to find a product that exactly matches and make it a “featured product”. Bit sneaky… To include Amazon products I would have to use the Amazon API, otherwise known as Amazon Web Services. I have some Amazon API code lying around which I could adapt very quickly to WordBay I daresay, but I am not sure how I distribute this because I have to include an Amazon Web Developer key and wouldn’t be keen on including my own. Users would maybe have to get their own key from Amazon in order to use that feature… Again, I’ll think about it
As for using WordBay directly from the template as a PHP function call, we had some private correspondence about that - I will look into that as soon as I get some time to work on WordBay as I guess it would be quite useful. I would also like to use WordBay as a widget in my template, so I will try to do it.
Hi, Mark:
I installed the plugin and have it fully functioning on a new blog i created, but on my veg blog it is not working.
I am getting some ERROR CODE on the page instead. Any idea what could be the problem?
Missy.
Hi, that is strange - someone else is complaining of a similar problem over here: http://www.itsgottabered.com/wordbay/wordbay-bugs-and-to-dos/
So I suggest you come over there and see if we can figure it out.