PhpBay
Pro – The
Extended Manual
“Get The Most Out Of
phpBay Pro For
Wordpress”
This guide provides installation and
configuration instructions for phpBay Pro for
Wordpress.
It also explains how to setup geo-targeting,
and discusses a few other simple tweaks to
get the best out of this money-making
plugin, including image linking and
modifying the Wordpress search results to
show auction listings.

Assumptions
This guide assumes that you know what
phpBay is, that you have a license for it,
that you have an account with eBay Partner
Network and that you have the latest
version of Wordpress installed.
If not...
1) Learn about phpBay here.
2) Use this link to buy phpBay and when
prompted for a discount code, use:
DA9CD69F42 to get 20% off.
3) Sign up with eBay Partner Network
here.
4) Use the Wordpress auto-install on
your host if available or try the 5-minute
install instructions here.
You may also want to check out this 9 step
guide if you would like to start from the
ground up.

Table Of Contents
1) Installation/Activation
2) Configuration
3) Testing
4) phpBay Per-Post and Per-Page
Settings
5) Geo-Targeting
6) Making the Images Clickable
7) Replacing Wordpress Search with
eBay Search
8) Becoming a Niche Website Expert

Installation/Activation
The first step is to install the plugin. It
installs just about like any other plugin for
Wordpress, but there are a few extra files.
Fristly...
1) Download the plugin to your desktop
2) Unzip it (free unzipper: WinRAR)
After unzipping the package you will see:
1) an 'images' folder
2) a 'wp-content' folder
3) an 'auction.php' file
4) the instruction manual and a
troubleshooting text file
Upload/FTP Steps (free FTP'er: FileZilla)
1) Upload all the images from the
'images' folder to the 'images' folder in
the root of your blog. If you don't have

an 'images' folder in the root, just upload
the entire folder.
2) Upload the 'auction.php' file to the
root of your blog.
3) Upload the entire 'phpBay' folder that
is inside of the 'wp-content/plugins/'
folder, to the '/wp-content/plugins/'
folder of your blog.
Now, login to your Wordpress Control Panel,
click 'Plugins' from the left menu, and
Activate 'phpBay Pro Plugin for Wordpress'.
Now, phpBay is installed and activated!
Good job! Now onto configuration...

Configuration
Setting Up A Campaign On eBay Partner
Network:
Setting up a unique campaign per site rather
than using the default is a good idea
because you will be able to track the sites
that are making you sales and how much.
1) Click 'Campaigns' from the top menu.
2) Click 'Create Campaign' from the
secondary menu.
3) Enter a Campaign name and click
'Create'.
4) Make note of the newly created
'Campaign ID'.
Configuring phpBay:
Go to Settings > phpBay Pro
1) Enter your license number in the top
box and click 'Update Options'.

2) In the 'Affiliate Settings' section enter
the Campaign ID that you just created,
and in the 'Custom ID' box, enter the
name you gave the Campaign. Click
'Update Options'.
The rest of the options are a matter of
preference but I will go through the settings
that I usually choose.
1) Choose the country that you are
targeting mainly. This setting won't
matter much later because we will be
setting up geo-targeting and the country
will automatically be selected based on
your visitors location.
2) Under the 'Basic Options' I always
turn on the following: 'Use SEO URLs',
'Display Items with Images Only', 'Use
mod_rewrite on eBay Images'.
3) Under the 'Visual Display Options' I
always turn on the following: 'Display the
eBay Logo?', 'Create Clean Product
Titles?', 'Display Sort Options?'. You can
turn on 'Display Listings in Columns?' if

you want. I do sometimes. Most themes
usually fit 3 columns. If the theme won't
fit 3 columns, you may want to turn off
the eBay logo and the sort options too
because they likely won't fit either. You'd
have to test it to be sure.
4) Under the 'Advanced Options' I always
select 'Time: ending soonest' from the
'Select Sort Order:' drop down box. This
setting won't matter if you didn't turn on
'Display Sort Options?' under the 'Visual
Display Options' though. This is also the
section where you can turn on 'paging'
and set the max number of listings if you
wish, but those values can be overridden
on a per-page/per-post level.
5) Don't forget to change the URL to
your affiliate URL in the 'Enter your
affiliate link:' box, under 'phpBay Pro
Affiliate Settings', or just remove the text
altogether.
6) Click any of the 'Update Options'
buttons and go through to make sure all
your settings have been saved correctly.

If you turned on either 'Use SEO URLs' or
'Use mod_rewrite on eBay Images' under
the 'Basic Options' as suggested, after
saving your settings, you will see a box at
the top called '.htaccess Code'. That code
will need to be copied and pasted into
your .htaccess file. Use the steps below:
1) Click inside the textbox and the code
should all be highlighted. Right-click and
click 'Copy' to get the code to the
clipboard.
2) Go back to FileZilla. Go to the root of
your Wordpress install. You should see
a .htacess file near the top. Download it
to your desktop. If it's not there, press
F5. If it's still not there, it may not have
been created yet. A quick way to create
it is to change your permalinks. You
probably should change them anyways.
Go to Settings > Permalinks and change
the 'Custom Structure' to something like:
/%category%/%postname%/
OR

/%postname%/
and click 'Save Changes'. Now go Refresh
(F5) FileZilla and download the .htaccess
file.
3) Open the file in a text editor. Be
careful, some text editors jumble this file
and therefore screw it up when re-saved.
I use TextPad which displays/saves it
correctly.
4) The code from the phpBay Settings
page should be still on your clipboard. If
not, go back and grab it and paste it
(right-click > paste) at the very top of
the .htaccess file and Save it.
5) Upload the .htaccess file back to your
server and overwrite the existing one.
phpBay is now configured and ready to be
dropped into posts and pages. Next we'll
test it out...

Testing
Let's make a sample page (it doesn't have
to be published) with some auctions so that
we can see the progress of the changes that
we make when doing the upgrades (geo-
targeting and image linking).
Just add a new page like you normally
would...
1) Under 'Pages', click 'Add New'.
2) Add a Title.
3) Click the 'HTML' tab on the editor.
4) Click the 'phpBay' button that shows
up in the editor. You should now see the
following code:
[phpbay]keyword(s), num, "", ""[/phpbay]
5) Erase everything between the
[phpbay] tags so that you have:
[phpbay][/phpbay]

6) Insert a search term between the
tags...use a term that you might use
when searching eBay for the auctions
that you want to display. Then put a
comma and the number of auctions you
want to display. Example:
[phpbay]bass fishing lures,5[/phpbay]
7) Click 'Save Draft'.
8) Click 'Preview'.
Now you have a basic working example of
eBay auction listings for the country that
was set in the phpBay global settings. You
can manually switch to display different
countries' auctions if you like. I will explain
shortly how to do it automatically.
In the next step I will go through some of
the settings that you can specify at this
level.

phpBay Per-Post and
Per-Page Settings
There are a number of settings that you can
specify on a per-post or per-page level. I
will go over some popular ones. The phpBay
manual can be referenced for more details.
There are 18 total parameters that can be
set, with the only required one being the
'search term' which is the first parameter.
phpBay will check the global settings for the
settings to use for any unused parameters.
All parameters are separated by commas
and have to be used in the proper order, but
again, not all values have to be set. In the
previous example we used just 2 of them.
The 1st parameter as we know, is the search
term. If you want to add multiple terms, just
separate them with the pipe symbol “|”
(above the Enter key usually). For example:

[phpbay]bass fishing lures|large mouth fishing
lures,5[/phpbay]
The 2nd parameter is the number of auctions
to display.
The 3rd parameter is the eBay Category ID.
This is a great way to add different pages to
your site broken down by catgeory. Also, for
example, if you want to search for 'jewelry'
but only Wholesale Lots, you would need to
add a category ID, otherwise you will get
results from multiple categories.
Click here for the US Category list and their
corresponding ID's. Don't worry, the correct
results will still show up when looking at
other countries auctions.
Here's an example for 'jewelry' auctions in
the 'Wholesale Lots' category. I will leave
out the number of auctions (2nd parameter),
to show you how to skip parameters that
you do not want to use:
[phpbay]jewelry|jewellery,,40131[/phpbay]

The 4th parameter is for exclusion keywords.
Add words separated by spaces, as a way to
filter out some auctions that show up in your
results that don't belong or that you do not
want.
Another parameter I like to use is the 12th
one. It is used to specify a Custom ID on the
page (or post) level. That way you can fine
tune your tracking. Now, in addition to
tracking at the site level, you can now track
at the page/post level.
If you turned on 'paging' in the global
settings, and you specify a value in
parameter 2 (number of listings to show),
then you will need to turn off paging for this
page/post. To do that, set the 17th
parameter to a 0 (just the number zero).
Let's setup geo-targeting now...

Geo-Targeting
There is a free plugin available that will
automatically display auctions for the
country of your visitor when they arrive on
your site.
The plugin was created by Alan (a phpBay
Pro user) and is available free (donation-
ware) from his blog after opting-in to his
newsletter. Let's get the plugin now...
1) Visit http://www.psp-
tubes.net/wordpress/phpbay-plugin
2) Scroll to the very bottom because it is
mostly an out-dated post.
3) Enter your name and email and click
'Send me the plugin'. You may be
brought to a page that says 'Whoops!
That Page Isn't Here'. Don't worry, there
is just something funky going on with his
subscription pages. Perhaps he should
switch to Aweber ;) At any rate, you
should quickly get an email with the

Subject: 'ACTION REQUIRED: Confirm
your subscription.'. Click the link in the
email to confirm your subscription. You
will again probably be brought to a page
that says 'Whoops! That Page Isn't Here'.
Again, don't worry. You should be
receiving another email shortly with the
link for the plugin.
4) Open the email with the Subject:
'phpBay plugin download details'.
5) Click the 2nd link in the email to
download the plugin.
Now that we have the plugin, let's get it
installed...
1) Unzip the file
2) Upload 'geo.php', 'combo.php',
'country.php' and 'geoip.inc' to '/wp-
content/plugins/phpBay/includes/' on
your server. Note: You will be overwriting
2 files, 'geo.php' and 'combo.php', so you
may want to backup the ones on the
server first. Renaming them on the sever
before uploading the new ones will work.

3) Download the free database file from
maxmind.com. Click here. Under the
'Binary Format' section, click the link
'Download the latest GeoLite Country
Binary Format' to save the database to
your computer. It will be compressed
in .gz format. The free tool WinRAR can
decompress the file, much like unzipping
a file.
4) You will be left with a file called
'GeoIP.dat'. It needs to be uploaded to
'/wp-content/plugins/phpBay/includes/'
in Binary mode. If using FileZilla to
upload, go to Transfer > Transfer type >
Binary. You can check maxmind.com for
a new version each month. I, myself, just
update it every 6 months. When
updating, just overwrite the existing file
on the server.
That should do it! To be certain it works,
switch the default country in the phpBay
settings to one other than your own
temporarily. Make sure the sorting options
or the eBay logo is displayed (discussed

earlier) because having one or both of those
turned on will also turn on the country
dropdown box. Now visit the test page that
you created earlier. You should be now
viewing auctions in your own country rather
than the default country. If you still see the
default country it might be because the
page is cached. If using Firefox you can
usually press Ctrl+F5 to fix that.
Notice something about the auctions? The
darn images aren't clickable. Let's fix that
now...

Making the Images
Clickable
To make the images in your auction listings
clickable you just have to make a quick
change to one or two of the template files
that phpBay provides.
There is one file to change if you use
columns and another file to change if you
don't. It doesn't hurt to change them both.
Here's how...
1) Download the files
'template.ebay.results.html' and
'template.column.results.html' located in
the '/wp-
content/plugins/phpBay/templates/'
folder, to your computer.
2) Open 'template.ebay.results.html'
with a text editor. If using TextPad, right-
click it and click TextPad and it will open
with TextPad. If you double clicked it, it

will likely just open in a browser and you
won't be able to edit it, so you will want
to open it like mentioned.
3) Locate the line with the code:
<td width="100" align="left"><img src="%
%image%%" alt="%%alt_title%%"
border="0" /></td>
and change it to:
<td width="100" align="left"><a href="%
%link_url%%" target="_blank"
rel="nofollow"><img src="%%image%%" alt="%
%alt_title%%" border="0" /></a></td>
The red represents what is changed in
that line.
4) Save the file and re-upload,
overwriting the existing file.
5) Now open
'template.column.results.html' with a
text editor.
6) Locate the line with the code:
<img src="%%image%%" alt="%%alt_title%%"
border="0" /><br />

and change it to:
<a href="%%link_url%%" target="_blank"
rel="nofollow"><img src="%%image%%" alt="%
%alt_title%%" border="0" /></a><br />
Again, the red represents what is
changed in that line.
7) Go back to your test page and
Refresh (F5) it to see your changes.
You now have clickable images in your
listings! Good job! Now, optionally, you may
want to replace the Wordpress search with a
phpBay search...

Replacing Wordpress
Search With eBay
Search
You may want to replace the Wordpress
search function to show eBay listings rather
than regular search results for the sites
existing content. To do this you just have to
replace some text in your theme's
search.php file. Note: This doesn't work for
all themes, so be sure to do a backup in
case it doesn't work for you. Here are the
steps...
1) Go to your theme folder with your FTP
program (FileZilla). The theme folder will
be located here: '/wp-content/themes/
{theme name}/' where {theme name} is
the name of your theme of course :)
2) We want to edit the search.php file
but we should make a quick backup first.
One way is to download the file to your

computer. Rename it. Upload it again.
Now you have a backup on the server in
case you need to fall back to it.
3) Go to your Theme Editor (Appearance
> Editor) in your Wordpress Control
Panel.
4) Open the file 'Search Results –
search.php' from the right side.
5) Locate the line:
<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
and then scroll down near the bottom
and look for:
<?php endif; ?>
You will need to remove all the code
between and including those 2 lines and
replace it with:
<p style="text-align:center;">Your search for
'<strong><? echo $_GET["s"] ?></strong>'
returned the following results:</p>
<p>
<?php

function phpBaySearch($term) {
$keyword = $term;
$category = "";
$text .= '[phpbay]' . $keyword . ',20,' .
$category . ', ""[/phpbay]';
echo phpBayPro($text);
}
phpBaySearch($_GET["s"]);
?>
</p>
6) Click 'Update File'.
7) Go test the search function on your
site. You should see a list of auctions as
the result of a search. If not, and you get
errors, check back through the code.
Worse case scenario you can just restore
your backup search file. To do that, go to
your theme folder in your FTP software.
Delete the file search.php. Locate your
backup file (the one you renamed earlier)
and rename it back to search.php. You
can rename it right on the server. Just
right-click and click 'Rename'.
Well, there you have it. Hope you found this
guide helpful. You may want to download
the phpBay folder from the 'plugins' folder

and use that for all new installs so you don't
have to repeat these steps for every site
that you build. Now, if you want to bring
your niche website building to a whole new
level, you may find the following quite
handy...

Becoming a Niche
Website Expert
If you would like to fine tune your
knowledge even more, definitely check out
the 9 Step Guide. It covers...
1) Picking A Market
2) Planning Your Website
3) Creating Your Content
4) Building Your Website
5) Marketing Your Website
6) Managing Your Website
7) And More!
Click Here For The 9 Step Guide Which Is
Being Dubbed “The Number 1 Way To Make
Money Online”.
Thanks for reading this guide. Feel free to
send it off to some friends and/or add it
your website or blog.

Keith Lock
http://keithjameslock.com