Links In Listings - Weekly Chat Follow Up

[valueaddedresource]

Hey marco@ebay I was just reading through today's chat posts and saw a question about links in listings that could use some follow up.

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Chat-with-the-eBay-Community/Weekly-Chat-with-the-eBay-Community-Tea...

@cz1266  asked: "Is it still ok to put a clickable link in an item's html description to another ebay item that you are selling?" (emphasis mine)

You said you didn't think that was allowed but would check and then came back later and said: "I've just confirmed that links are not allowed, you can see the full policy here. "

However, your link to the full policy shows that it still says that links to another eBay item are allowed.

Did that policy change recently and the page just hasn't been updated yet?

[*vyolla*]

I don't believe that the page has updated @valueaddedresource .

eBay seem to remove links, which isn't a bad thing given that somebody could easily spoof a link containing malware or a redirect and add that to a listing description. 

I don't know if you can remember, but the eBay guidance page on Reserves always said that a seller can remove the reserve if bidding didn't reach it, but you never could. We were keeping count of the years that info stayed, it was at least 12. It still says you can remove it, whether that has changed and you indeed can now I couldn't tell you. As it's a chargeable feature I'm not going to put that to the test, and nobody has been on any of the community boards to ask about it recently.

[valueaddedresource]

Thanks @*vyolla*  you may be right - I've personally seen many examples of eBay making stealth policy changes that take months or years to actually update on the help pages.

But it would still be nice to get confirmation of that from marco@ebay  and whether that is what is going on or not, it doesn't change the fact that he apparently either didn't read/understand the original question asked in the chat or didn't read/understand the policy page he was referring to in order to see that it conflicted with what he said in the chat - so one way or another, a response is still needed here to clear up the confusion he created with that answer.

[*vyolla*]

Absolutely. 

Pretty amazing how some pages feature errors that stay for years and others (I'm thinking the Simple Delivery one here) changed practically daily a few weeks back. 😀

[marco@ebay]

Hi valueaddedresource, thanks for your post.

Yes, it looks like the page in question hasn't been updated, so I will flag that now, well spotted! Just to confirm and provide further clarification, no links are allowed.

Thank you,

Marco

[valueaddedresource]

Thanks marco@ebay ! You might also want to make sure that note makes it to other teams/for other sites as well if they are not all handled by the same team as the previous policy stating links are allowed for other eBay items is also still displayed on the help/policy pages for US and other marketplaces too.

[cz1266]

Another very long time running error is the spelling of "Guinness" in the various categories for that collectable, spelled "Guiness" in some, and correctly in others... It's got to be 8 years ago since I first noticed.  Thanks also for clearing up the -links in descriptions- query I put up in the chat the other week... 

[bojangled]

marco@ebay 

To confirm you can’t link to your own items in your own store?

It’s something I did regularly. 
Jo

[jonatjonatjonat]

I still think this is a communication issue somewhere along the lines.

I know the big, big players sometimes adhere to different rules - but if this was a change of policy - it would impact every listing from players like music magpie, world of books etc whos descriptions are full of links to other ebay URLs.

I get what has been said - but its one I absolutely don't believe. For a start - why would ebay even have an issue with their own URLs?

[bojangled]

@jonatjonatjonat completely agree! The original question in the chat wasn’t understood correctly.

Jo

[valueaddedresource]

---

@jonatjonatjonat wrote:

I still think this is a communication issue somewhere along the lines.

I know the big, big players sometimes adhere to different rules - but if this was a change of policy - it would impact every listing from players like music magpie, world of books etc whos descriptions are full of links to other ebay URLs.

I get what has been said - but its one I absolutely don't believe. For a start - why would ebay even have an issue with their own URLs?

---

@jonatjonatjonat  @bojangled  I definitely agree with you but I was giving it a few days to see if the policy page was updated as Marco indicated before pressing the issue. 😉

Since it's been over a week now though - marco@ebay are you absolutely sure that links to other eBay pages are no longer allowed? And if so, what is the timeline for that being explicitly stated in the policy and enforced against all sellers?

[custom-giftsuk]

I know this is a silly question but what would constitute a "link". Is it actual HTML link to an external or internal source or something like having your website plastered over your images or is it an encouragement to sell off site like "For more items please check out our facebook page"? Would that also cover the encouragement of buyers to check out more of their items on their eBay Store?

[jonatjonatjonat]

A link would literally have to be a href tag being present in the description.

The for more items please check our facebook page would fall under the Directing buyers off eBay part of the images, video and text policy. Stating checko out more items on our eBay store would be fine (at least in theory)

[marco@ebay]

Hi all,

My reply above is still correct. I will reach out to the team in question to see what's happening with the help page. 👍

Thank you,

Marco

[jonatjonatjonat]

I do hope that Music Magpie and World of Books (and the like) will be held to the same standards when the policy is amended.

[insidethe93]

Hi Marco, since no links are allowed it'd be great if there was please a quick & easy way for a buyer to navigate to similar items sold by the same seller e.g. same product but different colour. For instance I quite often want a piece of artwork but it's available in various colourways, sometimes if it's part of a collection options are offered of colours and/or with certain elements extra/omitted, but all sold by the same seller (at various prices too). And no, a drop-down menu arrangement could make it too complicated so it's best left as separate listings but with quick access such as a link would offer (were it allowed). Here the general eBay search feature isn't helpful, often far from it.

Thing is, if such navigation isn't quick & easy it puts off buyers = fewer sales than otherwise.

Thanks!

[*vyolla*]

---

@insidethe93 wrote:

Hi Marco, since no links are allowed it'd be great if there was please a quick & easy way for a buyer to navigate to similar items sold by the same seller e.g. same product but different colour. For instance I quite often want a piece of artwork but it's available in various colourways, sometimes if it's part of a collection options are offered of colours and/or with certain elements extra/omitted, but all sold by the same seller (at various prices too). And no, a drop-down menu arrangement could make it too complicated so it's best left as separate listings but with quick access such as a link would offer (were it allowed). Here the general eBay search feature isn't helpful, often far from it.

---

If you search the sellers listings by an item keyword (example of the field you need below), then all of those specific items (and no others) would come up in a single search.

[gjalp]

Except it doesn’t always work. I was looking for a specific listing of my own. I know its there but that search didn’t throw it up. I had to go via seller hub and active listings and use the same search term there for it to show

[*vyolla*]

---

@gjalp wrote:

Except it doesn’t always work. I was looking for a specific listing of my own. I know its there but that search didn’t throw it up. I had to go via seller hub and active listings and use the same search term there for it to show

---

That's so weird, can't say I've experienced that (yet!).