The Yclas buyer network

A new or small marketplace often has a buyer searching for something it doesn’t have yet. The buyer network links Yclas sites together: when your site is in it, your published listings can be found from other Yclas sites, and every result links straight back to the listing on your site. Buyers you would never have reached come to you.

It works both ways. When a search on your own site finds fewer than 3 listings, your site can show a few matching listings from other sites in the network under Also on nearby Yclas sites, so the visitor still finds something instead of an empty page.

The buyer network is being introduced gradually. For now Yclas support switches it on for a site; there is no switch you can turn on yourself yet, and it is off for every site until then.

Join the network

Click Support in your admin panel and ask us to add your site to the buyer network.
Once we’ve switched it on, go to Settings › General. A Buyer network section shows Share my listings with the Yclas network, switched on, with Set by Yclas support for your site.
Within a few minutes your site starts sending its published listings to the network. Large sites are sent a few hundred listings at a time, so it can take longer before all of them are in.

The Buyer network section only appears on sites where Yclas support has switched the network on.

What is shared and what isn’t

Only listings that anyone can already see on your site are shared: published, and not past their expiry date or event date. For each one the network gets:

Shared	Not shared
Title and the first 500 characters of the description, as plain text	The seller’s name, email address or phone number
Price, as your site shows it	Messages, orders, offers and bookings
Category and location names	Your members’ accounts and details
Your site’s country and the listing’s language	Drafts, pending, sold, deactivated and expired listings
The first photo	Anything at all while your site is out of the network
The link to the listing on your site, and its publication date

Your site keeps the network up to date by itself:

a new or edited listing is sent within a few minutes;
a listing that is sold, deactivated, deleted or expires is taken out;
every few hours your site checks the whole network copy against its own listings and fixes anything that differs, including listings added by a bulk import.

Every link and photo must point at your own site, so buyers always land on your listing page.

Where buyers see your listings

On other Yclas sites in the network. When a visitor’s search there finds fewer than 3 listings, a box headed Also on nearby Yclas sites shows up to 6 listings from other sites, in the same language and matching the category, location or words searched. Each shows its photo, title, price, category, location and site name.
On yclas.com. Shared listings are held in one central search on yclas.com, which also answers the searches from other sites. It is kept out of Google, so it never competes with your own listing pages in search results.

Clicking a result opens the listing on your site in a new tab. Buyers then contact the seller, buy or book on your site, exactly like any other visitor. Nothing is handled on the other site or on yclas.com.

Results from other sites on your search

While your site is in the network, your own search shows Also on nearby Yclas sites when it finds fewer than 3 listings, with the note These listings are on other Yclas sites that opted in to share them. Each link opens that site. Your own listings always come first, and the box never shows listings from your own site.

The box shows on the search page of Nova, Default and some other built-in themes. Themes whose search page doesn’t have it, such as Mercury, still share their listings but don’t show results from other sites.

Ask us through Support to take your site out of the network. When it’s switched off:

Your site tells the network to forget its listings, and they disappear from other sites and from yclas.com.
Nothing more is sent, and Also on nearby Yclas sites no longer shows on your search.

If your site stops being active, for example when its plan ends, its listings are taken out of the network automatically. They are sent again once the site is active and in the network again.

Good to know

Search engines and bots never trigger the network box, and your search page never waits long for it: if the network is slow to answer, the page shows without the box.
Results are matched by language, so a Spanish site sees Spanish listings from other sites, whatever the country.
Listings on the network are a copy. Editing or deleting a listing always happens on your own site, and the network follows.

Search and filters — how your own search works and what visitors can filter by.
Promote your marketplace — more ways to bring your first buyers.
SEO for your marketplace — get your listings found on Google.
Use Yclas support — ask us to add your site to the network.