I have been reading through the Forums and found a lot of confusion with making the eBay Partner program activation process work properly with HubPages. Moreover, my eBay reports don’t show any activity that I know for sure is happening. As a problem solver by nature, I began an investigation.

Here is an explanation of the situation, with a detailed guide to help confirm the HubPages domain for your eBay Partner Network. This assumes that you already are signed up with eBay and that you are an approved eBay Partner Affiliate. But we may have other problems, as I’ll be explaining.

Technically, eBay wants you to create a file called “epndomain.txt” with a unique Activation Code placed in it. They want you to place that file in their root directory so they can read that file and confirm that the site is under your control. But don’t worry about that, as you will soon see. The purpose of that file is to prove to eBay that you have rights to manipulate the web site, since only the person who has rights to it can place a file in the root directory. Only the WebMaster can do that.

The web programmers behind the scene at Hubpages are smart. They created a nifty little button called "Confirm Domain", next to your eBay Affiliate settings, that will allow any Hubber to create that elusive “epndomain.txt” file in the root directory of the Hubpages website with that Hubber's eBay Activation Code in it. So, yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. You can create that file in the HubPages root directory. You've got the power! Thanks to the great programmers at HubPages. Give them a hand (clap-clap-clap).

You need to already have an eBay Partner Account. Applying for that is not the subject of this Hub. So make sure you get for that before continuing here.

When you are approved for the eBay Partner Network, log into your account and create a campaign called HubPages. You do that by clicking the "Campaigns" tab as shown in the screen shot at the right (click the image to enlarge it).  Under the "Campaigns" tab, click "Create Campaign." Then enter "HubPages" in the Campaign field and in the description field. Click "Create" when you are ready.

Now click the "Campaigns" sub tab and you will see "HubPages" as one of your (or the only) domain(s). Note the Campaign ID to the left of it. That, my dear (or my man) is the code you place in your eBay Affiliate Code field on the HubPages Affiliate Code page. Do that now so you don't forget. Next we will get into the crux of the main reason why I wrote this Hub.

Open two Windows at once. Log into your HubPages Account in one and into your eBay Partner Network in the other. This is important, as speed is an issue, as you will see. Read on.

On the eBay Partner Account Window...

1. Click the "Account" tab.
2. Click the "Domains" sub tab.
3. Next to "Add Domain" enter "hubpages.com" after the "http://" and click "add."

In your HubPages Window…

1. Go to your "My Account" and select "Affiliate Settings."
2. Click the "confirm Domain" button on the left of the eBay settings. It will take you to the page titled "Confirm the HubPages Domain For Your eBay Partner Network Account".
3. Click on the option that says, "I already have an eBay Partner Network account".

The next page has a field where you need to place your "Unique Identifier or Activation Code" to prove that you have control over the hubpages.com domain.

HubPages will create the “epndomain.txt” file for you in its root. But it will only remain there for 90 seconds. So you need to be quick, which is why I suggested that you do this with two windows open.

In the window where you are logged into your Partner Affiliate site (You should still be in the "Domain" page if you were following instructions) you will see an Activation Code. This is a unique Identifier just for you. That is the code that eBay wants to see in the “epndomain.txt” file.

Copy that code (Ctrl-X on Windows, or right-click and select COPY) and then go to the window where you are logged into HubPages and paste (Ctrl-Y on Windows, or right-click and select PASTE) that code into the field that says "Unique Identifier or Activation Code".

NOW click "Submit" and quickly switch to the window where you are logged into your eBay Partner Affiliate site and quickly click the "Confirm Domains" button.

eBay will look for “epndomain.txt” in the HubPages root directory and read its contents. If it matches your Unique Activation Code, then you will be confirmed.

As a WebMaster myself, I realize that if more than one Hubber tries to do this within the same 90 seconds, then the Activation Code from the second one will replace the Activation Code from the first one before eBay has a chance to read the file. I think that is one of the problems that has been frustrating most Hubbers who have been trying to do this in vain. That’s why I decided to write this Hub. I succeeded the first time I tried, by using two windows. One window logged into HubPages and the other logged into my eBay Partner Network. Both at the same time.  I think that is the only solution to this speed bump madness. But it still may not work all the time if too many Hubbers are doing this simultaneously and still clobbering the file of one another before eBay reads it. But at least using speed between two simultaneous windows will reduce the chances of this happening.

I may update this section at some future date when I discover new things. But for now, I am noticing that eBay is not including the impressions and clicks from HubPages into the reports. I also have a business web site and the eBay report shows all my activity there. So I know for sure that it is working.

To verify, I checked the HTML source code of one of my Hubs to see if HubPages was structuring the eBay affiliate code correctly. Don’t worry if what I just said is meaningless to you. Needless to say, HubPages is doing it correctly and we all should be getting credit for 60% of the eBay impressions in our hubs. I never really doubted them as evidence of how well the entire HubPages website is configured.

I noticed that HubPages places their own eBay affiliate code in the link 40% of the time and my affiliate code 60% of the time. That goes along with HubPage’s stated method of sharing earnings. I saw that this is done 40/60 with Amazon links too, as expected.

Why did I check on that? Not because I didn’t trust HubPages. But because I needed to confirm that my affiliate code was getting impressions. Once I saw that it was, I knew that it MUST show up in my eBay report.

I am wondering why eBay is not reporting it. They seem to be ignoring affiliate links from HubPages. Even if we get no clicks, it still should show the impressions in our reports.

In your eBay Partner Network…

1. Navigate to the "Reports" tab and click "Run Report" as shown in this screen shot.
2. Change "Report Type" to report "By Campaign".
3. Set "Date Range" to anything that includes a period that you know your eBay Capsules were displayed by you in your browser. If you were looking at your own Hub, then it was displayed and should show up in your report.
4. Wait a day or two for the data to get into the report. Don't expect it to show up in the same day's report.
5. No need to change the other fields, just click "Run Report"
6. Does your HubPages Campaign that you created show up? Please let me know in the comments capsule at the end of this Hub.

As I said, I will update this section of this Hub as I gather more information.