Significant Drops in eBay Impressions and Organic Page Views: A Huge Problem

[retro-treasureparadise]

Since April 6th, my eBay impressions have dropped significantly from an average above 1 million to around 500k, and now they hover at around 600k. Despite contacting customer service, I received an unhelpful response that everything looks fine. Frustratingly, I have continued to upload new listings every day, but sales have still decreased. On April 25th, a new issue arose where my organic page views showed 0, which is clearly not accurate. I reached out to customer service, but their response was again unhelpful and similar to my previous experience. These ongoing problems have made me feel unstable and unsure about eBay's reliability. I am now considering moving to another platform, but before making that decision, I want to know if others are facing similar issues.

 

 

[jupiter_collectibles]

Same thing happening to me. Which has affected my sales and has been the worst week I've ever had in 12 years. It's showing zero organic views and then a couple days later magically has a different number that's not zero. I've contacted eBay support multiple times with no help. It seems like there's a different glitch every day on this site. The frustration is becoming not worth it. My sales this week are $46. That has never happened. 

[mybigsale]

Sellers organic impressions have dropped significantly (April 27, 2023)

Reference ID: ALERT14635

I see no mention of the definite bug/glitch reported by many sellers who are seeing the traffic report displaying ZERO organic page views: This is the 3rd day for reports of the traffic report showing Zero Organic Page Views, when previous to three days ago the majority of page views were organic.

Is the issue with the sudden disappearance of organic page views in the traffic report being addressed? Maybe the tech report "ALERT14635 Sellers organic impressions have dropped significantly" already addresses showing zero page views in the traffic report, when previous to three days ago the majority of page views were organic?

Hopefully at some point we can get answers concerning the traffic report drastic jump to reporting Zero Organic Page Views.

1) Is this a bug/glitch?

2) Did eBay make a change and do this intentionally (sometimes you surprise us)?

3) Is whatever causing this something only affecting the report or is it affecting my sales?

Thanks for your assistance.

[mybigsale]

kyle@ebay 

Re: Significant Drops in eBay Impressions and Orga... - Page 7 - The eBay Community

Don't know if I had to copy you in the previous message for you to see it? 🙄.

[valueaddedresource]

@zamo-zuan  not that we need more proof, but thought you'd be interested any way - this shows it's definitely just like the PL error you had noted last year, except this time they are lumping organic in with external.

A seller sent me this screenshot yesterday of what their report showed for 4/24 - 0 organic, 57 external, and 32 promoted.

eBay has now corrected the chart to show organic for that day (still not showing it for 4/25) and the same seller is seeing this reported for 4/24 as of today: 9 organic, 46 external, and 32 promoted.

So a few  things here:

A.) this proves once again that eBay is not independently counting external, organic, and promoted based off of actual measurements and simply reporting those numbers - instead they are using some kind of algorithm/formula to extrapolate the data.

B.) eBay clearly has no idea how to handle accounting for External Promoted Listings - which should have been ironed out long ago since that was introduced back in 2021.

C.) How are we supposed to trust *any* of the data eBay reports to us, especially on ad attribution, when they are obviously just making it up as they go along?

[zamo-zuan]

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@valueaddedresource wrote:

@zamo-zuan  not that we need more proof, but thought you'd be interested any way - this shows it's definitely just like the PL error you had noted last year, except this time they are lumping organic in with external.

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Thanks for pointing that out! That's something that I wanted to test but only first took screenshots of everything today. 

I have to stress one thing, this is even worse than last years issue:

• Last year revealed that the Organic Views calculation is dependent on the Promoted Impressions - meaning that they (at the very least) were expecting a discrepancy and extrapolating view numbers.
• This issue reveals even more because not only do we see the same behavior as last year, but we can see that once the views were restored, the spread of the impressions changes as well!

So this is evidence that they are not ONLY extrapolating the View numbers, they are also extrapolating the Impression numbers!

It looks like eBay does this weird extrapolation to try to "cover up" what might visualize any problems on their end. But when errors like this occur, it reveals what's going on behind the curtain... And what's behind the curtain is these numbers are not even real, and rebalance around each other!

Hence the lack of transparency with these numbers. Their promotion revenue is up 27%, meanwhile they aren't even giving us the real numbers to show us what we're paying for. We're just paying 27% more for LESS sales, made up numbers, and broken algorithms that are based upon these numbers.

[pls-consignments]

I'm also a small seller, been selling the same type of items on here for 24-yrs now. Looking at your items, the first thing I noticed was  that your pricing may be on the high retail side, especially if you wish to 1)  compete with people like me, or 2) move your items along. If neither are a concern for you, then get comfortable with <10 sales per week.  However, if it's your desire to accomplish either, then I suggest finding cheaper ways to source your items or reduce your expenses to cover the Promoted Listing "tax". I generally keep about 700-800 listings up at all times, and usually sell between 30-35 items per week with Promoted... reluctantly of course 😉

[chlipp-78]

The real question is why is this happening specifically to organic views. They must have changed something dealing with organic views to cause this bug, right? Is it yet another change that will continue to crush our organic sales in favor or promoted sales?

[simply-the-best-for-you]

kyle@ebay   Kyle as several people have pointed out, the ALERT needs to state the actual problem, which is not a "Drop" in Organic Impressions.  The problem is that Organic Impressions are being reported by Ebay as ZERO, which is reasonably impossible.  Especially for all of us to be experiencing it at once.    

I am on day 2 of 0%, when they are normally between 40-70%. Ebay's traffic chart is showing that.   There's a big difference between a nebulous "drop" & a VERY SPECIFIC...

MANY USERS ARE SEEING 0 in the Organic Page views section of their Traffic Reports.  Many of these users are also reporting actual Organic Sales during the days the Traffic Reports are saying it's 0.   

This thread is full of screen shots showing it, I can add mine if necessary.   Can you please get the language changed on the ALERT14635 to identify the ACTUAL SPECIFIC PROBLEM?  

Also, it seems like there s/b an easier way to get added than having to wade through menus, to contact a rep, have them call you & then not be able to understand a word b/c they are ESL  & they won't understand the issue either.  Isn't there some AUTOMATED way to add ourselves to it?   I have no desire to speak to a rep who doesn't speak English.  

[ghostsintheattic]

Unfortunately I'm now at 0 organic views like so many others. I've been a full-time reseller since 1999 and I think it's downright pathetic how eBay is messing with our income and livelihood. We all know we can support our families selling here if we put the work in... well, we USED to be able to. I decided to do whatnot shows since I only made a little over $300 last week on eBay. In 5 days my whatnot sales were $1812. Tbh my 30 day on eBay is only $2200. Do the math.... I want to have eBay be my main platform but 8 months ago I was doing $7-10k a month on eBay and it's just DYING. If I didn't have whatnot as an option I'd actually have to go get a "real" job. 

[jpjcfashion]

Selling since 2007! My organic impressions have dropped off till I have had none today. Over 5K listed and have hundreds of organic impressions everyday for years and none all day by tonight at 9 PM. Not 1 organic impression ALL DAY! Something is very wrong and very frustrating!

[aldelbertmatthew]

I've reported these issues to customer service and basically got gaslighted on the phone by someone chuckling while insisting there's no issue with the site.

So what is it?

[earthdreamer]

Reporting from Australia.

Charts look normal, and my sales are up by 40% on last month, though that's not saying much as I don't have many listings at the moment. 

[anjofak]

I took a look at ours showed red negs on all except promoted listings 200% up...

Seems off considering all the views are promoted,  but none of the 3 sales are...hmmm

 

[simply-the-best-for-you]

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@aldelbertmatthew wrote:

I've reported these issues to customer service and basically got gaslighted on the phone by someone chuckling while insisting there's no issue with the site.

So what is it?

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@aldelbertmatthew Did you give them the actual ALERT number that was posted in this thread?

[simply-the-best-for-you]

Mine have not been "dropping off".  In fact, they have been quite steady until 2 days ago, when they were suddenly 0.   Again, we are NOT talking about sales, we are talking specifically about 1 field on the Traffic Reports.  That's what the bug is.   

I believe it is a math/calculation issue, as my sales have not been affected at all & a number of people have stated having Organic sales on the days the Organic Page Views show as ZERO.