Comments on: eBay.com ban ME page website links

By: CashBackAtEbay

CashBackAtEbay — Fri, 30 May 2008 17:11:43 +0000

As eBay has a new policy of setting procedure BEFORE policy, we’d recommend removing your outside links on the ABOUT ME page or you may well find yourself booted from eBay.

SELLERS SHOULD REMOVE ALL LINKS ASAP OR FACE SUSPENSION:
Don’t believe us? eBay banned digital downloads March 24, 2008 and retroactively suspended sellers without notification. Hundreds of sellers went NARU (not a registered user). They’ve retroactively punished sellers in a number of other ways, too. Retroactively turned all neutrals into negatives May 19, 2008

What else has eBay done?
Closed Live Auctions, April 28, 2008
Removed Mutual Feedback Withdrawal
Removed the Square Trade mediation option
Rumor has it that eBay Live is dead! Yup, eBAy has apparently cancelled eBay Live 2009: Source Skip McGrath and TameBay (eBay University is on the way out, too)

eBay’s only constant is change.

By: Ed

Ed — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:48:17 +0000

Oops! just realised I my last post is on the wrong thread…

Should have been under….

eBay.com scrap choice and multiple listing policies

Sorry,
Ed.

By: Josordoni

Josordoni — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:41:34 +0000

@ Chris.. my mind is boggling as we speak.

goodness only knows why they want to be quite so restrictive….

By: Ed

Ed — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:28:47 +0000

CHOICE IN LISTINGS

Sounds great but I have one or two caveats…

1. I read somewhere that it may not be allowed across all categories?

2. How to handle it?

If you have to match choices coming in from eBay and Paypal messages or email, with eBay sales records it could turn out to be a nightmare.

Best answer would be for eBay to add some mechanism within the listing to collect choices and show them in all relevant documents including the downloadable csv files that some of us use to print invoices and labels.

In the mean time I’m wondering if it would be legal to add some variables to the url of a listing which can be read by javascript. For instance, if you look at my shop (eshave) you will see it is highly customised, and already includes a custom link to each of my shop listings. It would be a simple matter to add a variable to the url containing the size information. Quite how javascript would handle this I have yet to research and so would welcome suggestions.

By: Chris Dawson

Chris Dawson — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:48:14 +0000

Should be able to link to reviews and guides as they’re eBay pages. However think about where you might link to in your auctions:

Link to Reviews & Guides
Link to About Me
Link to Add to email marketing/subscribe to shop
Link to your eBay blog
Link to immediate purchase item from an auction
Link to a shop category to offer similar items
Link to complementary items you have for sale (eg memory, tripod, case and batteries for a camera)
Link to Feedback
Link to shop custom page
Link to T’s and C’s page

It’s going to be interesting trying to fit those links into just the five links per auction permitted under the new policy and yet they’re all valid reasons to link.

By: Josordoni

Josordoni — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:54:08 +0000

Chris, I wonder if we will be able to link in Reviews and Guides?

As Sue says, we shall have to wait and see, and hope that they get some active feedback from the US changes to fine tune these kinds of links.

By: Yael

Yael — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:43:30 +0000

Well if they want your home address, you could put the address as your website address first instead of your name.

By: Sue Bailey

Sue Bailey — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:39:15 +0000

Yael: change your name to White Diabolo.co.uk?

By: Sue Bailey

Sue Bailey — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:36:34 +0000

Lynne, I think you could link those forums under “third party solutions and services”, but don’t take that as gospel til eBay have confirmed it.

By: Chris Dawson

Chris Dawson — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:35:17 +0000

Hey Lynne, it’s going to affect me too – I’ll no longer be able to link to manufacturers sites for data sheets or even to point people towards where they can download drivers for the product they’re viewing

By: Yael

Yael — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:31:47 +0000

Owen:
“Itâ€™s not a link but you can get your web address on every listing with eBayâ€™s blessing. Indeed at eBayâ€™s insistance.”

How oh how?!

By: Josordoni

Josordoni — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:25:33 +0000

Am I right then in reading this that if I ask for help in a forum, that likes to be acknowledged in the listing if it has identified something for me, that I will no longer be able to acknowledge them in the form of a link?

Will it be acceptable to show the url without linking it, do you think?

I am a bit miffed about the extra info sites being outlawed – I like to send people to wiki or other info sites so they can learn more about what is on offer. If there are no commercial buying facilities on these sites how can they be a problem?

Or have I got it all wrong again?

By: Sue Bailey

Sue Bailey — Tue, 20 May 2008 08:50:00 +0000

Yes, Chris, you can still do that.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 20 May 2008 08:44:41 +0000

I am not sure I understand the bit about photos. Surely the majority of websites offer some sort of product or service. My intention was to use a hidden page on my website (when I finally get it up and running!) to host pictures of items. All that would show on ebay would be the item. On my website the picture would be hidden, as the assortment of house clearance items I am currently selling would look rather odd on a photography site. Would I still be able to do this?

By: northumbrian

northumbrian — Tue, 20 May 2008 08:08:05 +0000

to be honest I often click the sponsored link, I dont always buy from them ,but I check them out, their specialist dealers in what I am looking for ,I would be daft not to,
its easier than trawling thru a few hundred individual listings with a trillion postage options and conditions

By: Sue Bailey

Sue Bailey — Tue, 20 May 2008 07:34:06 +0000

One could take a leaf out of eBay's book: if a town can change its name to Half.com, Oregon...

By: Owen

Owen — Tue, 20 May 2008 07:24:18 +0000

It’s not a link but you can get your web address on every listing with eBay’s blessing. Indeed at eBay’s insistance.

By: Sue Bailey

Sue Bailey — Tue, 20 May 2008 07:22:49 +0000

Whirly (#10) – the original justification for sponsored links was that they only appeared when there were no/few eBay results.

Then they changed it so that the links appear on every search result. IIRC the justification now is that they don’t change browser behaviour, i.e. no sales are diverted off eBay because of them. If that is true, one would of course question what the point of the sponsored links is.

By: Whirly

Whirly — Tue, 20 May 2008 07:11:24 +0000

@8 “If you have your own web site, would you allow traffic to be diverted away from your site”

Sponsored links are on every search result page of eBay.

I always thought links were supposed to appear if your search resulted in 0 results, anytime I have used search they are on every page?

By: Paul M

Paul M — Tue, 20 May 2008 07:09:42 +0000

Illogical when ebay expect sellers to advertise their postal addresses to all.

By: Store Your Stuff aka Jade

Store Your Stuff aka Jade — Tue, 20 May 2008 06:31:07 +0000

@kiss the problem is that we are selling on THEIR platform, they can have whatever policy or condition they want. But it’s up to us if we carry on selling on eBay.I don’t think it’s double standards at all, If you have your own web site, would you allow traffic to be diverted away from your site, unless your were receiving a financial incentive (paid advertising) to do so?

Maybe a better solution would be for eBay to charge a “per click” fee for certain links from pages such as about me pages, in a similar way to that other sites do. At least then we would have a choice if we wanted to try to divert traffic and eBay would get financial incentive for finding the customer, even if they make the purchase off ebay.

By: Jimbo

Jimbo — Tue, 20 May 2008 06:25:47 +0000

Looks like eBay have just lobbed another hand grenade into the power seller forum.

By: Kiss

Kiss — Tue, 20 May 2008 06:19:12 +0000

Mmm.. so if we will not be allowed to link to our webby from our “me page” will ebay stop sponsored links appearing all over the site too?! Is it just me that thinks there is a double standard here?

By: Cliff Aliperti

Cliff Aliperti — Tue, 20 May 2008 01:35:34 +0000

This could be interesting for me. I include a link to a “Grading Guide” page in every auction to get people onto my site. I have a drop down menu that links to an Amazon aStore and I think I have some AdSense ads on the page too. I guess these would be in violation of the new policy, but the way I read it I should be okay if I scrub those couple of things from that single page.

If that’s the case I can live with this. If not I have a hell of a lot of revising to do to my auctions!

By: Sue Bailey

Sue Bailey — Tue, 20 May 2008 00:54:45 +0000

When are EBAY going to launch a shopping cart?! It really is about time.