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Prerequisites:  iMacros SCRIPTING EDITION

Goal:

Submit large number of targeted search term entries to Overture, and save time by automating nearly all of the work. For each primary search phrase retrieved from data source (a), combine with a secondary search term (b) to request a*b search terms.

Background information: Overture is a well-known pay-for-placement directory, a very important tool for successful internet marketing. Overture top results appear in AOL, Ask Jeeves, Altavista and other major search engines.

This tutorial was provided by Sean Pecor of Digital Spinner, Inc.

Click here for the example code

Assumptions:

Script assumes auto bidding is enabled by the Overture user account.

Data Source:

Comma delimited file (.csv), each row containing the fields.

Primary search phrase, Bid,  Url

Example attachments: overture.csv and schema.ini

What macro does:

For each car and it's associated url in the database, submit five search terms. Example submission for a particular row in the .csv database: 

porsche 944 car parts
porsche 944 parts
porsche 944 engine parts
porsche 944 restoration
porsche 944 performance parts

Examples: overture-addlisting.vbs and overture-addlisting.iim

Notes:

Only 6 example entries exist in overture.csv, but of course you can have manyhundreds of car make/models and the script would add 5 terms for each car. In my scripts I have anywhere from 50 to 2,000 rows for Marketingtool.com.

Script assumes no error is reported by Overture after the submit button is pressed. As of 9/20/02, Overture doesn't report duplicate terms as errors. Previous to 9/16/02, Overture reported duplicate terms (those that already exist in the account) as errors and repeated the form page. I've removed my code to deal with that since it's no longer needed. If Overture goes back to requiring a corrected form, then the macro code would need to be changed (change the submit button name to "continue" from "submit", add a block of rst[0] -> rst[1] values that zero out the field at the bottom, followed by a "submit" button press. Blanking out the problem search term fields would make
Overture ignore the problem entries and process the good listings).

I don't know of a way to automatically grab the current URL from the browser, so the user has to paste their current Add Listing url inside the overture-addlisting.iim file for the GOTO URL command [Note: I have notes in the macro file to document that process.]

Here is how I've used the above approach:

• Added over 20,000 search terms to Overture using iMacros.

• iMacros successfully submitted one term every 5 seconds on a 366mhz Windows notebook computer.

•  I target 20 variations of web design primary terms, bridging them across many geographic locations, each location having a distinct url.

• Scripts I plan on developing in the near future:
  - Findwhat search term submission script.
  - Overture existing search term update script.

Have fun!

Sean.

This tutorial was prepared by Sean,
Digital Spinner, Inc.
Cutting edge web design and applications development.
http://www.digitalspinner.com
http://www.groupit.org