Keyword Spamming on Ebay
Today, one of my Ebay items I was selling was due to end after having been on sale for seven days, and literally a couple of hours before it was due to end I received an email from Ebay stating that the item had been removed from sale as a result of ‘keyword spamming’.
Apparently the use of the word ‘As New’ at any point in the title is considered to be “using brand names or other inappropriate keywords in an item title or description for the purpose of gaining attention or diverting buyers to a listing”.
A couple of points:
- Why wasn’t this breach made more while going through the listing proceedure? Surely Ebay could invest in software which detects if these words are used, which could then automatically inform the user?
- Why wasn’t I informed earlier? This item has been on sale seven days and it had bids placed on it. They could have contacted me a long time ago which would have given me time to adjust the listing without effecting the bidders.
I know that Ebay have got to have rules and regulations and I’m sure it’s mentioned in their user agreements and policies, but when something so simple and unharmful can cost a user a sale, instant removal of a listing with no prior warning is a poor method of managing the issue, on top of the bad usability to start with.
If you’re clearly taking the piss with a page title then fine, but I think lesser punishments and warnings would be more suitable for people who make a mistake for the first time. Read Ebay’s largely unknown keyword spamming tutorial here. I’ll not complain because believe it or not the 10p listing fee isn’t a big deal, but I thought people should know what Ebay considers ‘keyword spamming’.
One of the many reasons why I gave up on EBAY. Things like this make you really angry. I had enough. And after reading this, I’m glad I dumped them when I did.
I also gave up on eBay. A buddy of mine was ripped off a couple times and I just don’t trust them, it is too easy to be scammed and not get your money back. Now they can’t even run their own filters, bogus.
Its nice to see that when people raise their voice and head against top giants and about their corrupted policies.
They think that whatever they will do, will be accepted by everyone.
Hats off to you mate that for your posts.
Its nice to see that when people raise their voice and head against top giants and about their corrupted policies.
Thank you for the post
eBay have annoyed me so much, that I have finally stopped using them, their rules are just stupid and a lot of them unnecessary, although if they’re going to make a profit on something, it’s all good.
Very nice article, eBay is trying to control everything…
They should use some more intelligent algorithm for the search. Do you remember how was first search engines working? And how they was spammed? This is the same problem.
thanks for that post, is that useful for me, sorry about my english.
I have had a lot of trouble with ebay and thier customer service, having them tell me one thing and then not follow through on it. http://netguidecentral.com
hi thanks for nice post, i bookmarked ur blog.
I have had a lot of trouble with ebay. Nice post. thank you.
I think keywords play a less significant role now than they were when best match was first rolled out 8 months ago. Best match is giving more weight to recent sales and DSR. This creates another loophole some sellers are buying their own items to boost ranking. It seems this game ebay created is never ending.
i dont trust people on ebay anymore. there are a lot of scammers out there.
Understand your frustration, the keyword issue should have been caught and explained during listing. What makes it days later that they see “hey you can’t do that.” Almost makes their spam policy seem arbitrary.
That seems a bit harsh.
Especially as the purpose of the title is to get people attention.
Sound like you were just describing the item - if it’s as new, it’s as new…
ebay gets more and more frustrating to use i find these days