I get a lot of clients asking me which one is best – the factory or the API. The factory includes some seemingly promising features, which some of my clients have on their wishlist including:
- Product drip feeding
- Content spinning
The Datafeedr API on the other hand allows you to build your shop using WooCommerce which is the best shop builder I’ve ever seen.
So, do you want or need Product Drip Feeding or Content Spinning?
Product Drip Feeding
The concept of product drip feeding is to load products every few hours into your blog. The theory goes that Google likes new content and by creating new blog content automatically from your products, you create fresh content daily.
The counter theory, especially since Google Panda was released – a search engine algorithm modification intended to penalise poor content websites – is that this is a very bad idea.
If you can make a product drip feeder which is actually useful to your customers, then go for it. If you are planning to use product drip feeding to fool Google into thinking you have fresh content then be prepared to lose all your traffic when the Google Panda penalty hits.
Content Spinning
This is another one of those tools seriously curtailed by Google Panda. The idea behind content spinning (in the case of Datafeedr, spinning content from product descriptions) is to generate new content. It works by combining sentences in new orders, replacing phrases with similar phrases, replacing words with synonyms in an attempt to fool Google into thinking this is completely unique content.
The first major problem with this technique is that your bounce rate and all important conversion rates will be appalling. Imagine if you landed on a website where the content was all gobbledygook, would you be tempted to stay or just hit the back button on your browser and continue your search?
The second major problem is that Google Panda has been built to spot this kind of practice – the resulting penalties will crucify your search engine rankings until you remove the offending content.
Conclusion
Datafeedr will continue supporting the factory for an indefinite amount of time, but my recommendation is definitely to go for the Datafeedr API instead. Combined with the free WooCommerce plugin and any of the free WooCommerce themes, it gives you unlimited potential to build the most beautiful shops imaginable for your niche.
Sign up for the Datafeedr API here
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