3 Theories on Why Fewer eBay Listings Are Showing Up on Google

Ever since 9/16 when fp30 rolled along with a bunch of finding bugs, we have seen sales plummet in many categories with apparel and jewelry being hit the hardest.

While most sellers are focusing in on some of the eBay (EBAY) finding wackiness, one seller noticed Google (GOOG) had all but disappeared as a 'source' of traffic in their advanced store reports.

Based on that tip, we started doing some looking and saw some very unusual behavior.

Here's a search for a popular Nike product's model number:

Notice that the second, third and fifth search results are all for eBay international sites and not ".com".

I've run literally hundreds of searches and you have to really work now to find eBay in the organic (and even paid) Google results. Interestingly enough, when I did find the occasional eBay listing in the index, it was an FP30.

Note that eBay's pagerank [PR] doesn't seem to have changed - it's at 8/10.

Theories on what is going on...
I have a couple of quick theories on what's going on:

Given their track record in the last couple of weeks, it's possible that eBay has done something to mess up the crawlability of the site.
It could be that eBay has asked Google to not crawl anything but fp30 dramatically reducing the number of eBay listings in the google index (this doesn't seem very smart, but hey anything's possible I guess)
It could be that Google is using this tough spot for eBay to kick them in the ribs and has decided that eBay listings are 'not relevant' and yanked them from the index.

Personally I think the last theory is the most probable given the near overnight disappearance of eBay's listings from the Google index.

Readers - any insights into what you are seeing/think is going on

Disclosure: Author is long eBay and Google.

This article has 43 comments:

Sep 25 11:04 AM
Ever since Ebay pulled Google's Checkout as a payment option, I think the relationship between the two is strained at best. Ebay once had a great following, but they continue to fiddle with their business model - their latest decision is to soon disallow payments via money orders.

Maybe Google shares the same perception as the rest of us, and is getting fed up with the whole thing.
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Sep 25 11:06 AM
What is fp30?

Thanks.
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Sep 25 11:15 AM
Be interested to know your stats on companies showing in listings. Could they be Google Checkout Companies only?
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Sep 25 11:27 AM
Listings are up 20%.Customer satisfaction is at a ll time high. Sellers are delighted with the policy changes, and buyers can buy with confidence.All the changes are for the eBay community.
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Sep 25 11:34 AM
J.Donahoe. What you just said is the exact opposite of what is going on over at eBay right now.
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Sep 25 11:59 AM
I also noticed that eBay items are no longer in Google searches as they once were. As for Norrington's and Donahoe's comments above, what a crock!
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Sep 25 12:17 PM
Ebay has been making enemies faster than its been making money this year for sure. One wonders how long they can keep someone like Donahoe at the helm with his disruptive ideas. Yes, I believe Google is kicking them in the teeth and rightly so!
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Sep 25 12:17 PM
Watch out Donahue! Ebay is going down. I think Google booted you guys off their top listings, and it will stay that way. You want to play around with the big boys, this is what happens. The way you are screwing us sellers to get rid of our "flea market items", and make eBay like Amazon, you will lose in the end. Us small sellers are what made you guys billionares and this how you pay us back, no seller feedback, forcing PayPal down our throats, which is a move aginst free enterprise. The buyers are our customers and it should be up to us how we accept payment, check , MO, etc. If you want to be a dicator and tell everyone how to run their business, you will go down in the end. After eBay takes a fall, who would hire you? Maybe you could go get a job with Freddie Mac and Fannie May, you fit right in with running things just the way they like it! Millions of Power Sellers and small sellers are leaving eBay every day. There is another big auction house starting their own auctions in the next couple months. Watch out, because that is where everyone will shop to get their antiques and collectibles. If the stockholders of eBay who are reading this and losing money on their stocks, if you guys were smart you should force eBay to remove Donahue as CEO and replace him with someone that can make eBay like it was.That is the only way you will ever make money again on eBay stock. But it is probably too late because so many sellers have left and buyers, it will end up going out of business. You stockholders are going to be the ones to lose the most, so if I were you, I would sell, sell, sell.
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Sep 25 12:42 PM
It doesn't appear to be a deliberate eBay strategy as a check of their Robots.txt file isn't stopping Google crawling any listings. Your thinking that code changes may have caused some difficulty for Google is also improbable.

My best guess is Google's algorithm has changed again and, this time, caught eBay up in the process. Google is mad keen to keep commercial content buried in its index in order to force increased demand for Adwords advertising. Of course the less commercial, content rich sites that then get favoured in Googles' index are also likely to display the corresponding Adsense ads. Nice business eh?

But this could also be a deliberate policy because when you do a check of Google Products for anything now you will see every eBay listing there has a "rover" link (eBay affiliate link format).

eBay affiliates have been complaining this month that their performance is markedly poorer which again suggests eBay is doing less well in natural search.

Last point, the numerical Google Pagerank you mentioned (8/10) is now virtually a vanity thing only and has little influence on position in natural search which is based on a much more fluid ranking formula.
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Sep 25 12:43 PM
GOOG is most likely flexing muscle.
They have the search market all tied up and are looking crush Yahoo next.

Ebay made a good move exposing poor sellers to neg feedback.

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Sep 25 01:26 PM
While all these "big" guys play their games, the buyers and sellers are losing. If Google is purposely flexing their might, their relevance has dropped in MY eyes.
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Sep 25 01:31 PM
By the way, does anyone think that Donahoe and Norrington would both respond with the same exact quote to the same exact blog. I seriously doubt these are the people they say they are.
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Sep 25 02:04 PM
Ebay sales are in the toilet. Fees have been RAISED twice this year in attempts to duisguise the MASSIVE number of ebayers FLEEING the site. ebay/Paypal have been caught requiring buyers of possible counterfeit items to send those items to Liquidity Services, which IS an online SELLER. Ebay got caught, several times, padding their OWN listing numbers (only admitted to it during one of their rounds). More policies to protect the scammers are developed daily. The Global ebay Boycott continues. Donahoe & Norrington are clueless and ebay SUCKS!
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Sep 25 02:28 PM
I have been doing a lot of work with Google natural and Product searches since February due to my interest in assisting the growth of the alternative marketplace as I became quite disillusioned with ebay's customer support and its (lack of) compliance with the posted Terms of Service. My major interest is in being able to FIND items listed off of ebay.

I have noticed this ebay results being lowered and raised in Google web searches going on since about March. Based on the F30 (whatever the heck that is) observation, I will venture to say I believe it has more to do with things that eBay is doing to its site than any "conspiracy" or "attitude" on the part of Google. Unfortunately, some of the alternative sites also fail to leverage the power of Google natural search for the sellers using their sites as much as they might.

It has been heartening to see eBay shoot itself in the foot in this area, as in so many others. On several occasions sellers searching for their items cross-posted on alternative sites to see how visible they are to buyers have reported the alternative "hit" coming up before the eBay hit. For a few days a few months back, eBay listings became temporarily invisible - every hit that came up was from expired listings or linked to Express items.

I hope eBay continues to make itself less visible in Google Search and in Google Products (though these returns have remained more stable as they rely more on seller submissions to GoogleBase and not on the spiders). That is one of the best things that can happen to the alternative marketplace, IMO.
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Sep 25 04:45 PM
Donahoe is an idiot and eBay execs are bigger idiots for hiring and promoting him. All the B.S. that eBay sales are up 20% and buyer satisfaction is at an all time high is a blatant lie and an insult to our intelligence. Who is he trying to B.S?? We all know that stock share price is at an all-time low and members are doing nothing but complaining and leaving eBay over all of his negative changes..myself included other than a few occasional listings. Now he is banning Money Order payments as a seller's choice and requiring PayPal and credit card payments only? Is this legal to ban other payment options when PayPal is owned by eBay and is the required payment method???? They tried this in Australia and it didn't fly because the Commissioner called it an unfair practice. Then I read that eBay was not going to require PayPal/credit card only payments here in the U.S. but would require PayPal to be offered as a payment option.. still unfair and biased toward their own PayPal monopoly..!! But now currently they've apparently decided to try and get away with requiring PayPal/credit card only payments after all here in the U.S.

All of the negative changes implemented this year have become a pain in the ass and very unfair to users. I hope eBay continues going down the sewer and Donahoe along with it.. the sooner the better. I was a 10 year eBay user and I helped make eBay the enjoyable, profitable auction site it had become. Fortunately I saw what was coming and sold my eBay stock months ago at a profit before it hit an all-time low. Now it is a sham and it is disgusting to watch them drive away all the members who put money in their pockets for so many years. They are just greed-mongers in my opinion and don't deserve our business or our money.
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Sep 25 06:36 PM
If Google deliberately decrease the relanvancy of eBay's listing in their search. I think the problem is at Google not eBay. At the end of the day, It's Google's stupid strategy that is hurting small businesses like ours.

All of you who commented on how eBay sucks, and how eBay is doing things to hurt your business. Use your brain and think who is actually the one that is trying to run your business out. It's not eBay the company that provided you guys the platform to do your business. It's Google, the company that is trying to screw every single industry. Search, Newspaper, and now even the Wireless Phone industry. They will eventually start selling gTanpons, gCondoms, gStrings, gSpots....
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Sep 25 07:32 PM
Wow! It's true. I did some random quick searches for items and ebay didn't even make the first cut in the top 10 on the first page!
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Sep 25 08:50 PM
CooperT, of course the real J. Donahoe and L. Norrington aren't posting here. This poster amuses himself by adding "everything's great! everybody's happy" comments in their names to every discussion forum on eBay. He tells the complainers not to be "soretails." Pay no attention.

To those who think Google is changing something: lots of people have noticed a sharper dropoff in references from Google since Sept 16th (see Auctionbytes and eBayStrategies blogs for discussions). It's a much simpler explanation that the new FP30 format which was rolled out on that date did something nasty to eBay's SEO, than to think it's deliberate on Google's part. But nobody is certain.
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Sep 25 08:55 PM
Joe Lin, we are using our brains. All this year, eBay has been behaving in a manner very destructive to its customers, and self-destructive as well. The upshot is that any stupidity you can name is laid at eBay's doorstep first. Their software is extremely buggy, and this latest version of search is a disaster. I infer from the sudden departure of their CTO this summer that he tried to convince Donahoe to delay the rollout but was overruled. At any rate, he didn't care to be around when the proverbial you-know-what hit the fan.
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Sep 26 12:18 AM
Joe Lin & Nadine: Joe, you are on another planet and Nadine, you get what's going on. Ebay is completely and foremost at fault for everything going down and they did it all by themselves with the promotion of the brain-dead Donahoe. Even if he didn't write the earlier posts above, he is in charge of making the decisions to implement all of the assinine changes that are forcing us to leave Ebay. It's like he's doing everything he can to rid Ebay of users. Is that it??.. Is Ebay trying to get rid of all of the small-item/small business sellers and buyers?? If so, Ebay is cutting off its nose because the big business users have left too.

I'm hoping and wishing that Ebay goes bankrupt sooner rather than later so we don't have to hear any more of its "everything is great" crap which we all know is a " big load"..!!
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Sep 26 01:36 AM
I'm very happy with Ebay these days. I enjoy 90-100% sell thru's and get top dollar for my merchandise. The Ebay failures sure do cry loud and often. I guess real business is harder than most folks thought.
PS: Fixed price sales are for Amazon and the rest of the Internet, Ebay was built on auctions. Hope this helps!
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Sep 26 03:41 AM
User 269960, eBay will be an interesting story. Bankruptcy is not around the corner; it's just too big and rich to fail quickly. When your trailing 12 mo revenue is 8 billion dollars, on high margins too, you have a lot of room for error. But Donahoe is coming to the end of his rope. Even the analysts are catching on to the ongoing train wreck. Q3 will see layoffs in an effort to placate the Street. If Q4 is a bust, he will be out. What that may mean is not a bankrupt eBay but a broken down and no-longer-king-of-the-... eBay. There will still be a lot there which could be salvaged by someone who understands that the site must be split between eBay Classic and the New eBay shopping portal.
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Sep 26 08:43 AM
My listings under "Norwinda" were always on the Google front page,.....now nowhere to be found and my hits are way way down,...sales off by 70% from earlier this year,....funny to see the ebay cronies here pumping up ebay's misery index! This is what you call ebay "burning its bridges"!
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Sep 26 08:58 AM
Just a side note to the cronies out here saying how much better Ebay has become......I have been an influential seller on Ebay for over 13 yrs, listing a dozen items a week and doing about 500k in sales a year, and that is suddenly evaporating before my eyes. Good business sense would be to promote more during a bad economy not make things harder for the sellers as they are doing so well! Its like they went to the Bush school of economics!
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Sep 26 09:49 AM
Ebay seems to Control it's Searchablility....Here... the Ebay Robots file...

### BEGIN FILE ###
#
# allow-all
#
#
# The use of robots or other automated means to access the eBay site
# without the express permission of eBay is strictly prohibited.
# Notwithstanding the foregoing, eBay may permit automated access to
# access certain eBay pages but soley for the limited purpose of
# including content in publicly available search engines. Any other
# use of robots or failure to obey the robots exclusion standards set
# forth at <www.robotstxt.org/ wc/ exclusion.html> is strictly
# prohibited.
# v3
#

User-agent: *
Disallow: /help/confidence/
Disallow: /help/policies/
Disallow: /disney/

### END FILE ###

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Sep 26 01:59 PM
The stock price continues to go up. The policy changes are prooven positive growth for the eBay community. Open your eye's and stop be sore tails.
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Sep 26 03:13 PM
Nadine: True, bankruptcy may not be around the corner but Ebay has a lot of expenses buying up different sectors which cost in the millions each plus fighting lawsuits, and when they lose enough customers, the revenue will not be sufficient to balance out the expenses eventually.. especially when the company is on a downward spiral.

This ass Donahoe who is posting comments here about how high customer satisfaction is, that stock prices are up, and that " Let's not get ahead of ourselfs here! As you can clearly see eBay confidence is at a all time high, and sellers & buyers are delighted with the new policy changes that have been recently implemented....The policy changes are prooven positive growth for the eBay community..Open your eye's and stop be sore tails" is obviously no CEO and is amusing himself with his B.S. First, get a life and go back to school to learn English, grammar, and how to spell. I see 5 errors in your 4 sentences. Sore tails???? What a jerk..!!!!

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Sep 26 04:05 PM
I personally think ebay purposely altered their search crawler so that listings wont show up in search. Ebay just came out with adcommerce for ebay marketplace where sellers can bid on pay per click keywords just like adwords through google. Only those sellers willing to pay EXTRA for visibility will show up.

In my opnion this is just another measure ebay is taking to boost revenues while lessening the exposure casual sellers and small business get. Heck, unless you offer free shipping now or happened to be one of the largest sellers on the site, odds are your listings wont ever show up in best match much less in google search.

Donahue is one ruthless jerk in our opinion, and will stop at nothing to drive off the bulk of the grassroots auction style sellers while catering the big guns that have large inventories and infastructures, and this new adcommerce pay per click program they just implemented will further limit any search engine exposure all sellers on ebay once were accustomed to.

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Sep 27 05:32 PM
check out the best new free site to help protect sellers on eBay and other sites blocked-bidders.com It is free to search and register Copy and paste your blocked bidders list and help other sellers at the same time. We are all in this together.
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Sep 27 08:12 PM
What a bunch of idiots, Go back and check the reports more closely. While its true that the Google percent is down, the number of hits is actually up. The percent has dropped because ebay is producing more hits. They now have two searches Classic and eBay, and they have dramaticly increased the hits from eBay. I compared monthly and daily hits, including after the 15th. Whoever wrote this should take a few minutes to get his facts straight. There is no way he did the search work he claimed, because its not true. Just working for a pay check hey buddy.
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Sep 28 02:28 AM
PS30 is simply a tactic to up the 4th quarter results. Lower fee means MORE listings (offsets fleeing masses) Higher fee increases revenue (offsets lack of sales).

Looks like it just might work & Donahoe will have saved the planet from the evil mom & pop sellers at a profit!!

Best thing to do is avoid ebay like a the festering cess pool that it has become & buy & sell elsewhere.

Bonanzle ranks high in google search & shopping & is SOOOooo easy to use. Gives payment options at sellers discretion & even offers real time chat between buyers & sellers. No nickle & diming sellers out of business with many FREE options to actually HELP its clients.

Bonanzle is a fresh & HONEST new approach to online buying & selling with NONE of the drama & intimidation of ebays "Disruptive Innovation">

Just my 12%.....make that 15% (now have to include Paypal)
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Sep 28 03:22 PM
Ebay is such a joke anymore and this surely isn't Dunahoe their new incompetant CEO. I would suspect Dunahoe could at least spell, then again by his actions that might be questionable too. Ebay had a spat with their coders, that is the deal and it was over money. Short the stock, it is going down. Sure we had changed with FEEbay and a lot of complaints, but this is WAY BEYOND anything that ever happended to Ebay. The SNAD, FV fees higher, feedback changes, DSR's, lack of customer service and OMG the suspensions of GREAT sellers becuase peple are bombing them with bad feedback since it is open season on sellers is sad. Many good sellers are effected by these changes, the lack of search standing is minor compared to the ustomers they have cut off. When you cut a seller, you ultimately cut a buyer and generally their freinds. People talk-WAKE UP SHAREHOLDERS and get rid of this idiot CEO or it will be certainly the LOWEST ROI ever produced for FEEbay.
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3 Theories on Why Fewer eBay Listings Are Showing Up on Google

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