A few years ago, the Build A Niche Store Program hit the market and quickly become many Internet Marketers favorite tool for making money with eBay auctions. Many Marketers quickly went out and bought hundreds of domains and installed this popular script on them. To say this script was H-O-T is an understatement.
During that period time, beginning Internet Marketers as well as seasoned Pro’s built multiple BANS sites. Some even went as far as to build huge networks consisting of hundreds of BANS sites. Many of these Marketers were pulling down 5 figures a month with their networks. Even the average Internet Marketer was making more with this program than they had with any other.
After a year or so the bottom fell out from under BANS owners. Google up and pulled the plug on many, but not all, BANS sites. The reason for this is unclear, as Google never gave an official reason. Speculation at the time was that it viewed these sites as thin affiliate sites and felt they offered no benefit to search engine users. Some sites that were making $10,000 or more a month went to making nothing as they fell out of the Google SERPS.
In a move that added salt to a wound, eBay then started dropping affiliates from their rolls. No one is quite sure why either. The official email that users got left more questions than it did answers. What ever the reason, some affiliates who were making a living off their BANS sites suddenly found their self without income.
So is the BANS program still a viable vehicle to make money on the Internet? I think it is. However, Internet Marketers need to keep in mind that a BANS site should be built like any other site. It must have good content to be useful for the Internet user. Without it, new sites run the risk of ending up like some of the old ones. With no rankings and no affiliate products to make money.
Are there alternatives to the BANS program? Yes there is. Now we have programs that will turn Wordpress into Affiliate sites using eBay auctions as well as a host of other programs that uses eBay to monetize their sites.
