What Google is referring to when it talks about duplicate content is the same information showing up on your own site that is a duplicate of the content on another page of your site. Google claims to not penalize you for this but does say that having content repeated on your site could affect your sites ranking. This post, by Jill Whalen, has some good information to think about when structuring your site to prevent category and tag links from causing this issue from happening.
http://www.highrankings.com/duplicate-content-google-346

Here is an excerpt that I thought was insightful.

Another site I reviewed had inadvertent duplicate content because they had too many similar but slightly different categories for their products, such as these:

http://www.example.com/bear-cave-photos/2428/dept

http://www.example.com/bear-cave-photo-gifts/1290/dept

They had more than 20 different URLs that all had pretty much the same products on them. Interestingly enough, many of them were bringing direct Google traffic. While that sounds like a good thing on the surface, I believe that if all the URLs had been consolidated into one, they’d have acquired even more weight and overall Google PageRank. This in turn would have provided the one main URL with an even better chance of showing up for even more targeted keyword phrases.

To create a multiple column layout of the In-line Multi you would need to modify the inlinemulti.html file of the Amazon Theme Template Set you are using.

It would be a good idea to make a copy of the Amazon Theme Template Set you are using like suggested on the this video at about 4:28. http://www.wpzonbuilder.com/blog/how-to-modify-a-wordpress-template/

Or you can attempt to modify the Theme Template Set your are using now by going to:

http://www.yourSite.com/wp-admin/plugin-editor.php?file=amzn/templates/default/inlinemulti.html

Replacing the /default/ with the Theme Template Set you are using as shown on the “WPZonBuilder General Settings” -> “Template” page in the “Template Set” drop down box. Once you have the URL set up correctly you can copy and paste it into your browser and hit enter. You will be brought to a page where you can edit the HTML code right in WordPress and not have to use FTP.

Copy and paste the code below into the edit box replacing the existing code and click the Update File button. Create a post with an In-line Mutli to see how the results will display within your theme’s layout.

The CSS code below my need some adjustments to work within your theme’s layout. The 2 to watch are the width and height. Those setting should get you close to a 3 column layout with a uniform height. If you want a 2 column layout you can change the width to somewhere around 44% and the height would need to be adjusted or removed. You will see that adjusting the width to a smaller percentage can give you more columns if needed.


<style type="text/css">
<!--

.amzn_inlineColDiv {
width: 29%;
height: 260px;
text-align: center;
margin: 1%;
padding: 1%;
float: left;
border: 1px solid #CCC;

}
-->

</style>
<div class='amzn_inlinediv'>
<div class='amzn_inlineColDiv'>
<a [relnofollow] [targetblank] href="[DetailPageURL]" class='amzn_multititle'>[Title]</a><br /><br />

<a [relnofollow] [targetblank] title="[Title]" href="[DetailPageURL]"><img alt="[Title]" src="[SmallImage]" /></a><br />

<span class='amzn_ratingtext'>Average Rating:</span> <span class='amzn_rating'><img src='[StarURL]' style='border:none;' /></span><br />

[TotalReviews] total <a [relnofollow] [targetblank] href="[DetailPageURL]">customer reviews...</a><br />

</div>
</div>

There are times when certain peaces of information do not show on a product post and you will see a default response saying that information is not available.  Why does this happen?

Amazon’s API only returns certain sets of information.  The API does not return all of the information available on Amazon’s site itself.

Let us say that the Sale Price is not available through the API.

Recommended solution:

On the “WPZonBuilder Language Settings” page in the “Empty Data Returned By Amazon Web Services” section you can change the Empty Data fields with statements like this:

<a href=”[DetailPageURL]” target=”_blank”>Click here for Best Price!</a>

This will make the statement a link to the Amazon product page with your Tracking ID and cookie.  Getting the cookie set as soon as possible is a good thing.  So I feel this is a great solution for the situation when Amazon does not return data for a particular field.

Spun text can be added to any post either before or after the WP Zon Builder [amzn_product_post] shortcode.  Or you can change out the content in the amzn_ProductDescription Custom Field of the post and this will replace Amazon’s product description with your own unique content.

Placing your own content before or after the [amzn_product_post] shortcode, found on the Edit screen of a Post or Page, will place the content either at the beginning or the end of your product post.

To change or modify the Product Description from Amazon you can edit the “amzn_ProductDescription” Custom Field of an individual WP Zon Builder product post.

To display the Custom Fields go to the Edit screen of the product you want to modify, then in the upper right corner of the screen you will see a tab labeled “Screen Options”.  Click that and check the box for “Custom Fields”.  Now when you scroll down the page you will see the “Custom Fields”.

You can modify or replace the content in the text field next to the ”amzn_ProductDescription” Custom Field.  Plain text or HTML can be put into the text field.  When done update the post and your new content will be displayed.

Content Site with a Store or Product Category.

Put content like Reviews, Articles, Videos or images about your niche on the home page, then use WP Zon Builder to create a Store or Product Category filled with all of your Amazon Affiliate Products.

You can make your home page what ever you want. I like the idea of putting reviews and articles about your niche. Make sure you are targeting your keywords and the home page SEO is good for the search engines.

Many People already have website, so they can use WP Zon Builder to create a Store or Product category.  Here you can add 100’s of products to your existing site.

In WordPress go to the “Settings” -> “Reading” page.  There is a section called “Front page displays”.  You can make your choice there and save the changes.

Here is a quick video on how to make a static homepage.

The Problem

WordPress 3.4 changed the way they handle Thumbnail/Featured Images.  This caused most sites to not show these images.  This is not a WP Zon Builder issue.  Here is a Google search for wordpress 3.4 images problem, which shows the problem.

The Solution

Download newest version of WP Zon Builder 2.5L or greater.  As of 2.5L, WP Zon Builder is coded to conform to the new WordPress 3.4 standard.  (Note – 2.5L will also work on older versions of WordPress)

Instructions:

New users, installs and websites:

• Use WP Zon Builder 2.5L or greater and Install like normal, no worries.

Existing WP Zon Builder sites that have already upgraded to WordPress 3.4:

If you already have sites set up with WP Zon Builder posts and have made the switch to WordPress 3.4 you may see that your Thumbnail/Featured Images are not working properly.

1. Upgrade to WP Zon Builder 2.5L or greater (see upgrade instructions here)
2. To auto update old images to the new WP 3.4 standard, go to this page on your site

   http://[SITE_DOMAIN]/wp-admin/admin.php?page=amzn_migrate_3_4

3. You are done

Existing WP Zon Builder sites that have Not upgraded to WordPress 3.4 yet:

If you have sites made with previous versions of WordPress and WP Zon Builder you can install the latest version of WP Zon Builder 2.5L or greater and not notice any changes.  But if you update your WordPress to 3.4 or higher at a later date you may/will encounter the Thumbnail/Featured Images problem for your posts that were made with previous versions of WP Zon Builder. The following steps will update the affected posts and you will be set to work with WordPress 3.4 or higher.

1. Upgrade to WP Zon Builder 2.5L or greater (see upgrade instructions here)
2. To auto update old images to the new WP 3.4 standard, go to this page on your site

   http://[SITE_DOMAIN]/wp-admin/admin.php?page=amzn_migrate_3_4

3. You are done.

WARNING – Do NOT install or upgrade to WordPress 3.4

It was just released and it either has a bug or they have changed the way they handle Featured Images and they will not be visible.

Here is a Google search for wordpress 3.4 images problem, which shows the problem.

Hopefully this will be resolved soon.  We will update this post when we have more info, so check back here.

New update and solution click here.

How can you add Amazon products to an Existing site with WP Zon Builder?

Lets say you have an existing site that has articles, posts and or reviews that you would like to add some Amazon products into.

There are several ways to add Amazon Products to Existing websites:

#1

If you want to add a Full Product Post with all the info from a WP Zon Builder post like Products pics, description, price, buy buttons, etc.  Then you can Easily convert any existing post into a WP Zon Builder Post.

Go to the Edit Post screen for that post and use the WP Zon Builder: Create Product Post menu to convert the existing post to a full fledged WP Zon Builder Product Post.

Just check the box and insert the products ASIN and then Update/Save the post.  Then add the [amzn_product_post] shortcode somewhere to the post (maybe at the bottom) and Update again.

That is how you would add a full Product Post to an existing post.  But there are other ways to get Amazon products into your Existing websites or posts.

#2

If you don’t want the entire Amazon Post, but would prefer a shorten version placed in the middle or end of a post. You can use WP Zon Builder’s Inline single or Inline Multi product posting features.  With these you do not need to convert existing post into WP Zon Builder posts, just place the shortcode in your existing post.  Read more at this post.

Monetize existing websites and posts with Inline product listings

#3

Here are some other informational posts about integrating WP Zon Builder into an existing site.

Multiple ways to Monetize your Site with WP Zon Builder Amazon Plugin

Why does the post say a certain price but when the customer is sent to Amazon’s cart sometimes the price is different or higher?

Auto updated pricing – how to make sure prices on posts are up to date?

What is happening is the lowest new price is displayed and added to cart. Most of the 3rd party sellers have only one copy at that price so if someone adds it to their cart, on Amazon, then that copy at that price is not available any more. So Amazon puts the next lowest available copy in their cart.

To get hyper accurate Amazon pricing on your site you would need to set the Caching feature of WP Zon Builder to cache for 0 days. That way the price displayed on your site would be the most up to date price. Doing this it would be more likely that the price in the cart will match the price the Amazon store will stick in Amazon’s cart. If someone else buys the lowest priced item then Amazon would substitute the next lowest priced item. I don’t think this would occur very often but it could. Just keep that in mind.

The best chance of making your On-Site Cart be hyper accurate would be to employ the caching method I mentioned. Other wise  just send them to the Amazon Product page and let them choose what price point they want to purchase at.

Here is a video about how to find your Amazon AWS Key and Amazon AWS Secret Key.

Go to this page:

https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/advertising/api/detail/main.html

If you have already signed up you can click the link “Resource Center” and then click “Manage Your Account”.  If you have not signed up then click the “Sign Up Now” button towards the top of the page.

WP Zon Builder now supports these countries.

Amazon supplies API’s (Data) for the countries listed below. As Amazon expands and adds additional Countries, we will include them in WP Zon Builder.

 United States – amazon.com

 Canada – amazon.ca -

 China – amazon.cn - 

 France – amazon.fr - Amazon affilié plugin de France

 Germany – amazon.de – Deutschland - Amazon Affiliate-Plugin Deutschland

 Italy – amazon.it – Italia - Amazon affiliato plug-in Italia

 Japan – amazon.jp - 

 Spain -amazon.es - Espana - Amazon afiliados plugin de España

 United Kindom – amazon.co.uk

Amazon has announced that it will make a few changes to it’s API, which is the data it supplies for developers. These changes are scheduled to occur on 10-25-11. According to Amazon these are not considered as major changes.

The full effects of their changes can not be totaly accounted for untill the Amazon impliments the change.

WP Zon Builder will make any changes needed to work with Amazon’s update.

For existing customers we will issue a patch or update, if needed.

We will be releasing an updated version of WP Zon Builder a few days, or sooner, before  the 10-25-11 deadline.

How to install a WordPress theme from your hard drive into WordPress. This video shows how to install the modified Gazette theme bundled for free with WP Zon Builder. Easily make a site in 10 minutes.

Amazon Plugin Feature

In This video we demo the jQuery Fancybox Image Galleries. This is a very cool feature. It gives your site a professional look. It is very easy to enable.

You can display a gallery of product thumbnail images. Clicking on a thumbnail will open the full-size image in a lightbox.

With this Amazon Plugin you can make a website filled with Amazon products in 10 minutes.

How to insert WP Zon Builder license keys and Amazon Affiliate keys into the WP Zon Builder plugin. This video takes you step by step on how to enter this info.

If you need to know how to obtain your Amazon Keys, Click here.

The keys can be quite long and many have inadvertently missed a few characters when copying and pasting the keys. Make sure you have the entire key. Try clicking in the box and doing (ctrl+a) to select all then copy and paste. The select all (ctrl+a) insures that you get everything.

IMPORTANT: Make sure that there are no blank spaces at the front or back the the keys. Having a blank space can cause errors.

Check out our video on How to Add Amazon Plugin product posts to your website.

Yes, you can edit posts created with WP Zon Builder.

Text pulled from Amazon by WP Zon Builder can be removed, edited, or added to.

First go to the “Edit Post” page.

1. In the Post Content box you can add content above or below the WP Zon Builder content by adding text above or below the [amzn_product_post] shortcode.

2. In the “Custom Fields” section (lower on the Edit Post page), you can edit the “amzn_ProductDescription” or other fields.

Note – If you can’t see the “Custom Fields”, go to the upper right corner of the Edit Post page, click the tab called “Screen Options”.  Check the box for “Custom Fields” and they will be visible.

Note – If you edit “Custom Fields” make sure you set your Cache settings (under general settings) to your desired results. Cache un-checked will cache for life. Also, you can use the “Field Blacklist” to enter fields that you do not want to be changed, while others get updated.

WP Zon Builder installs like any other plugin.

• Go to the WordPress Admin Plugins page.
• Upload and Activate plugin.

That’s it, your initial install is complete.

For additional information please visit the Tutorials & Documentation page.

This video discusses uploading, installing and activating the WP Zon Builder plugin.

Amazon WordPress plugin installation. How to install the WP Zon Builder plugin into WordPress.

How do I download or re-download plugin?
Where do I find my License Key?
I lost my password to the downloads area.

To Download your product.

Go to http://www.wpzonbuilder.com/customer-downloads/and enter your Name and Email,  on the next page login with the username and password you were provided with at sign-up.

If you can’t find your password, there is a forgot password feature.

• Once logged in click the link “My Packages”
• On the right hand side of that screen there is the link for “View Details”
• Click “View Details” , click “Latest – Wp Zon Builder x.x”, click on zip file and download to desktop.  The Gazette Theme is also available on that page.
• Click “Licenses” to see your License Key.

This video walks you through the steps.

This is a part of a series of videos showing the construction of the Best Cool Phones demo site.

Click here for answer and video.

How to post products. In this video we show you how to add Amazon Affiliate product posts to a site using WP Zon Builder with the Add to Queue and Post Products.

How to modify a theme template in WP Zon Builder an Amazon WordPress Plugin.

Wow! Alex put together an awesome YouTube video on how to build a WP Zon Builder site in less than 10 minutes.  He really showed the power of this Amazon plugin, displaying many of the easy to use features in WP Zon Builder.

Way to go Alex. You hit this one out of the park.

The Best Amazon WordPress Plugin Review

Here is what Alex had for his description for the video.

“today I am showing you just what WP Zon Builder – the WordPress plugin for Amazon Affiliates can do.
Instead of taking you through the features and benefits however, I have decided that the only way to show you is to build a complete site from scratch – live!
Watch as I build a fully functioning Amazon niche site in 7 minutes!”