Sorry there has been no updates on the blog the last month or so, but we have been going full out in the development of AdsBay, which has proved rather exciting. About a week ago AdsBay went though a massive upgrade, which saw the addition of many new features, some of the more noticeable are listed below:

• AdsBay Classifieds – Now service providers can advertise there services directly on AdsBay, without having to setup an auction. This allows them to promote all their packages from one listing rather than only allowing them to sell one services at a time.
• New Members Area – The members area has a completely new layout, which was needed to accommodate for the many additional features, and also allows each member to customise various aspects of it.
• AdsBay Community – The new AdsBay Community comprises of various features, including; a forum, clubs, chat rooms and blogs.
• Forum – Allows members to interact with each other, allowing them to exchange tips and advice, discuss current market trends and the current market situation and more.
• Clubs – Allows members to start and run various clubs, allowing them to build up a mini community of like minded people all interested in the same topics.
• Chat Rooms – Allows members to chat live with other AdsBay members.
• Blogs – Members now have the option to start their own blog on AdsBay, these blogs can be used to further promote a members listings and allows members to basically share there experiences and just talk about anything really.
• My Messages System – Now all messages sent through AdsBay are stored and can be tracked by a member in the members area, helping to keep track of buying and selling activities.
• Dispute Console – AdsBay now has a dispute area where members that are experiencing problems can come to try and resolve them. This is the last point of call when all other attempts at a solution have failed.
• Affiliate Program – Members can now promote AdsBay using the provided affiliate link, which will allow them to earn additional credit to use on AdsBay.
• Reverse Auctions – Members now have the ability to place reverse auctions. This allows members that require a specific type of advertising medium, with a specific spec to place a reverse auction and allowing publishers to bid for your custom. This type of auction also works well for member needing a service.
• Many new item promotional features have been added
• AdsBay and each member now have their own custom RSS feed for the auctions they are currently running.
• And there are many more, smaller changes and additions, with many more to come…

We hope you all find all these new additions very useful as we are sure you will.

The algorithm has had several tweaks, including one major enhancement, which has improved the accuracy of the calculated values. Previously, there where several jumps in the estimated prices, when certain criteria only changed slightly. These jumps were caused due to the method being used in one particular section of the algorithm. This part of the algorithm has been completely rewritten and various other parts have been optimised, so now the link ad price calculator is giving the most accurate estimates ever!

The calculator only calculates the value of one link at any time, so if there is only one ad on your website then it is worth more than if there were 6 or 10 (this is because there is a greater competition between the ads).

If you want to calculate what all the ads on your site are worth you need to select each area the ad will be placed separately (with all the other settings the same) and record the generated values of each (Hint: You should have the same number of values as the number selected in the “Number of ads on page” field) and then add them all up. This will then give you the estimated value of all the ad space on your website.