Amazon Products Feed - Beginners Guide

This guide was made to show you how to install and run the Amazon Products Feed. This is a very easy script to implement and you have total control over the look and feel of the results, so that you may integrate it into your website fairly easily. I'm assuming that you have a basic understanding of HTML, if not, you can find a great HTML guide here. Also, to earn money from your new Amazon Store, you must have an associate ID from Amazon.com. You can install and use the script without one if you want to see if this script is right for you. Click here to apply for an Amazon.com associate ID. If you have a good understanding of CGI scripts and how to configure them, you can click here for simple instructions to get you started. Otherwise...read on. You should always check the Amazon Products Feed page for updated information and MrRat's Script Support forum for help. For other scripts by MrRat, click here.

  1. Get the script
    1. Configure the script
  2. Upload your new script to your server
    1. FTP
    2. CHMOD
  3. Test the Script
This script is so configurable it can get very confusing; just remember that there are options. You can just insert your affiliate code, plop this script on your server, and it will run. If you decide to configure it; take it slowly, change one thing at a time, and study the examples. If all else fails check out the Support Forum.



Get the Script

To get the script right click here and choose "Save Target As…" then save it to your desktop. Or simply click the link above copy all the text on the page that opens and paste it into a text editor.


Configure the Script

There are a couple of things that you must change in order for the script to run correctly for you.

To edit the script, open it in your favorite text editor. Notepad will work just fine, if you want a fancier text editor download HTML-Kit. It looks a bit more complicated, but has some features that make it much easier to edit scripts like this (such as color coding elements). Now that you have it open don't be scared, you only have to change a couple things.

The very top line should look like this:
#!/usr/bin/perl
This tells the script where to look for your Perl directory. This is the most common location of Perl for most servers, you should be able to find this out from your hosting. If yours is different, simply edit it in the script. Like this:
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
Only change this if it is different for your server, if it is the same, leave it like it is.

Next, you need to change the Amazon Associate ID (if you want to earn profits).
Find the line that says:
@associate_ids = ("freewarfrommrrat");
and change "freewarfrommrrat" to your id, example:
@associate_ids = ("youramazonidgoeshere");
Just change the name in between the parenthesis, leave the rest just like it is.

If you ever want to ensure that your Amazon ID is in the script just "right click" your page in a web browser and select "view source" once the script is up and running, then just use the search function for your Associate ID and you will see where it is embedded into the page.

That's all you need to modify! Save the file as "amazon_products_feed.cgi" (you can name it differently, just make sure it ends in .cgi) and your ready to upload it to your server.

Now that you've configured your new script, you're ready to Upload it.



Upload your new script to your server

To be able to upload your new script to the server you need an FTP utility. If you don't have one, you can download WS_FTP LE it's shareware, and it has all the features that you will need. I'll refer this program for examples. All of this is possible with any FTP utility.


FTP

Connect to your website in the FTP Program and double click on your cgi-bin folder (you may need to open the public_html folder first, depends on server). This next step is optional, but it makes for a better organized folder. Click the button on the right side that says "MkDir" and type "amazon" in the box, this will create a sub-folder to place any additional files that the script can use (we'll get to that later in templates). Now double click on the Amazon folder you just made to change to it.

On the bottom of the 2 windows you will see 3 options
ASCII    Binary    Auto
Make sure that you select the ASCII options or the Amazon Products Feed will not work.

Next, navigate through your computer files and find where you saved the script a minute ago. If you used the name suggested it will be
amazon_products_feed.cgi
Next upload it to the server by either double clicking the file or clicking the file, then click the right arrow in between the two windows

Now you have the script installed on your server, you need to change a couple settings.


CHMOD

After you have the file saved to your server you need to CHMOD it. What this means is that you will tell the server who's allowed to access this script and what they can do with it. To do this, simply right click the file on the server side and near the bottom you will see an option "chmod (UNIX)"

CHMOD Select this and another box will pop-up with check-boxes.

CHMOD '775'

This is how you determine what the CHMOD setting is. The top row that says "Read" is counted as 4, the second row that says "Write" is counted as 2, and the last row that says "Execute" is counted as 1. The example to the left is what you need yours to look like, this is a setting of "775". If you run into any problems try the setting below which is "755", some hosting companies will only allow you to run one or the other, but one of them should work for you.




CHMOD "775"

CHMOD '755' Now you're ready to test the script.
CHMOD "755"



Test the Script

Now that you have your script installed, configured, and CHMOD'd, you're ready to see how it works. Open your browser and to go
http://www.yourserver.com/cgi-bin/amazon/amazon_products_feed.cgi
Note: if you named it differently, just change it in the URL above. You should see your new Amazon Products Feed, and you should be able to navigate through the categories and see some of the products. If you have any problems, specifically Internal Server Error (500 Error):

  1. Try changing the CHMOD settings from "775" to "755"
  2. Re upload the script to your server and make sure you check the ASCII box, and CHMOD it again.
These are the most common problems, if you are still having problems consult MrRat's Script Forum, use the search feature, most of the problems have been discussed there and your questions will probably be answered, feel free to post a question if it's still not resolved.

Still with me, great! As soon as you're ready to customize the look and feel of the script, read our

Amazon Products Feed - Advanced Guide



This documentation was provided by P&S Creations if there are any errors please contact us