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Can I bulk revise some html in my items and if so how?

I need to revise some html in my items and wondering if it is possible to do so in bulk. I have about 250 items that need to be changed. If so, can anyone tell me how to do this in simple terms?

Thanks.

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Re: Can I bulk revise some html in my items and if so how?

I see that you are in Canada, so be sure to use the site on which you listed.

eBay's Seller Hub has a bulk editing tool. Checkmark the selected listings from your Active Listings page and click the "Edit" option.  The Edit option is probably directly above the list, although it can appear elsewhere in some older versions of the Hub.  (The screenshot below is a bit older).

 

A new window will appear where you will again checkmark all of the affected listings. Then use the "Edit Fields" dropdown to select "Item Description".

 

Seller Hub - bulk edit descriptionsSeller Hub - bulk edit descriptions

 

From there, you can choose to Edit each description individually, or, if the text you want to change is identical throughout, then you can choose to edit in bulk.

 

https://ip1.i.lithium.com/4996846fd23702473a4c15757320111553f5e808/687474703a2f2f7777772e6973646e74656b2e636f6d2f65626179746f6f6c732f416374697665436f6e74656e745f737570706f72742f424541525f73656c6563745f66696e647265706c6163652e676966

 

The above screenshot is for removing text. If you want to replace text, then add the new HTML to the "Replace with" box.

 

The tool will process all of the listings that you provide, but may not change any if there was not an exact match (that means the HTML must match and the punctuation and spacing must match, whereas capitalization doesn't seem to matter).

 

Finding the exact text may be tricky.  You will need to capture the underlying HTML code from a listing to check for embedded HTML codes that sellers often don't see.  If your text (or HTML) has several different variations, then you'll need to make several passes with the various versions.

 

ShipScript has been an eBay Community volunteer since 2003, specializing in HTML, CSS, Scripts, Photos, Active Content, Technical Solutions, and online Seller Tools.

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Message 2 of 10
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Re: Can I bulk revise some html in my items and if so how?

I see that you are in Canada, so be sure to use the site on which you listed.

eBay's Seller Hub has a bulk editing tool. Checkmark the selected listings from your Active Listings page and click the "Edit" option.  The Edit option is probably directly above the list, although it can appear elsewhere in some older versions of the Hub.  (The screenshot below is a bit older).

 

A new window will appear where you will again checkmark all of the affected listings. Then use the "Edit Fields" dropdown to select "Item Description".

 

Seller Hub - bulk edit descriptionsSeller Hub - bulk edit descriptions

 

From there, you can choose to Edit each description individually, or, if the text you want to change is identical throughout, then you can choose to edit in bulk.

 

https://ip1.i.lithium.com/4996846fd23702473a4c15757320111553f5e808/687474703a2f2f7777772e6973646e74656b2e636f6d2f65626179746f6f6c732f416374697665436f6e74656e745f737570706f72742f424541525f73656c6563745f66696e647265706c6163652e676966

 

The above screenshot is for removing text. If you want to replace text, then add the new HTML to the "Replace with" box.

 

The tool will process all of the listings that you provide, but may not change any if there was not an exact match (that means the HTML must match and the punctuation and spacing must match, whereas capitalization doesn't seem to matter).

 

Finding the exact text may be tricky.  You will need to capture the underlying HTML code from a listing to check for embedded HTML codes that sellers often don't see.  If your text (or HTML) has several different variations, then you'll need to make several passes with the various versions.

 

ShipScript has been an eBay Community volunteer since 2003, specializing in HTML, CSS, Scripts, Photos, Active Content, Technical Solutions, and online Seller Tools.
Message 2 of 10
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Re: Can I bulk revise some html in my items and if so how?

@shipscript 

Thank you so very much, Shipscript!

Message 3 of 10
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Re: Can I bulk revise some html in my items and if so how?

I've tried this and it seem to be looking at the actual description text and not the HTML code.

 

eBay keeps changing the syntax of store search results, so all my HTML links for store searches are broken.

 

Simple example: Nike Posters Blazers

 

Replace OLD BROKEN STORE SEARCH RESULT SYNTAX
http://stores.ebay.com/ImaPaqRat/_i.html?_nkw

 

With new SYNTAX
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_dkr=1&iconV2Request=true&_blrs=recall_filtering&_ssn=imapaqrat&stor...

 

When I manually go into my listing and do the replacement it works fine.  But when trying to use the Bulk Edit/Replace Description, nothing happens.

 

I probably have over 5,000 store search result links in my listing, so virtually impossible for me to do this manually.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Message 4 of 10
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Re: Can I bulk revise some html in my items and if so how?

@imapaqrat 

For a while, eBay disabled the ability to edit HTML code. It couldn't be found by the "find" and HTML and failed when added within the "replace" box.

 

That has recently changed where an HTML checkbox must be selected to find the HTML in the listing and to replace with HTML.

 

This is a screenshot of today's test that worked correctly. Notice the HTML checkbox.

 

Bulk Editor - edit description HTMLBulk Editor - edit description HTML

 

Be sure to copy the exact phrasing found in the source code. Missing a single hidden character will cause a failure and no changes will be made. 

 

Additionally, if there are variances in the source coding, a new find/replace would need to be performed for each variance in the coding.

 

In addition to editing the full link code, shown above, I ran a second edit where I swapped out only the URL, as your post requests, and that succeeded as well.

 

ShipScript has been an eBay Community volunteer since 2003, specializing in HTML, CSS, Scripts, Photos, Active Content, Technical Solutions, and online Seller Tools.
Message 5 of 10
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Re: Can I bulk revise some html in my items and if so how?

eBay completely change the  href HTML string, so you can't just replace the 1st part of the http: code.

 

So the find replace of the beginning of the HTTP string does work, since there is more HTML code after the search search criteria. 

 

I'm going to try a two part find replace. 1st step get rid of the red highlight submit search. 2nd step, replace the http beginning.  But this is still a huge time sync working around the fact that eBay just changes things without understanding the impact on some sellers.

 

Thanks for nothing eBay.  This is the 3rd time you have changed the store search results syntax in as many years.

 

FULL BROKEN <a href CODE (blazers)

<a href="http://stores.ebay.com/ImaPaqRat/_i.html?_nkw=blazers&amp ;submit=Search&amp;_sid=2515071" target="_blank">

 

 

FULL WORKING <a href CODE (blazers)

<a href="https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_dkr=1&amp;iconV2Request=true&amp;_blrs=recall_filtering&amp;_ssn=imapaqrat&amp;store_cat=0&amp;store_name=imapaqrat&amp;_oac=1&amp;_nkw=blazers " target="_blank">

Message 6 of 10
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Re: Can I bulk revise some html in my items and if so how?

As I mentioned, eBay has changed the store search href syntax multiple time.

 

Not sure which of these came 1st, but they are both broken HTML code with this latest eBay store change

Simple Search: Jordan
<a href="https://www.ebay.com/str/imapaqrat?_bkw=Jordan" target="_blank"> [BROKEN]
<a href="http://stores.ebay.com/ImaPaqRat/_i.html?_nkw=Jordan&amp ;submit=Search&amp;_sid=2515071" target="_blank"> [BROKEN]

 

Current working
<a href="https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_dkr=1&amp;iconV2Request=true&amp;_blrs=recall_filtering&amp;_ssn=im...jordan " target="_blank">

 

The 1st time my search links broke, I spent 100s of hour fixing a lot of them, only to have the syntax change again.  That was when I gave up on changing links in existing listing and just made sure new listing worked.  Not a perfect solution, but I didn't have the bandwidth to manually fix the existing listings . . . Again.

 

Now, once again, 100% of my search links are broken.  Not to mention my personal docs that have my often used search hrefs code, so I could cut and paste my most used search syntax; like "Jordan, Pippen, Bulls, NBA, poster, spider-man"

Message 7 of 10
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Re: Can I bulk revise some html in my items and if so how?

@imapaqrat 

 

Oldest
<a href="http://stores.ebay.com/ImaPaqRat/_i.html?_nkw=Jordan&submit=Search&_sid=2515071" target="_blank">

Old
<a href="https://www.ebay.com/str/imapaqrat?_bkw=Jordan" target="_blank">

 

 

Most of the query in an eBay link is unneeded. You may want to experiment to find the shortest necessary, as shown below, to ease future revisions.

 

 

New
<a href="https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_dkr=1&iconV2Request=true&_blrs=recall_filtering&_ssn=imapaqrat&store_cat=0&store_name=imapaqrat&_oac=1&_nkw=jordan" target="_blank">

Shorter with better arrangement
<a href="https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=jordan&_ssn=imapaqrat&_oac=1" target="_blank">

 

 

The Active Content Editor tool can accept one or more Regex style wild cards to replace all strings in all listings, all in one pass.  For instance, I would instruct the editor to replace the URL through the first "?" and remove the rest of the link beyond the keyword. Then append the end of the new link.

 

 

ShipScript has been an eBay Community volunteer since 2003, specializing in HTML, CSS, Scripts, Photos, Active Content, Technical Solutions, and online Seller Tools.
Message 8 of 10
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Re: Can I bulk revise some html in my items and if so how?

That "Shorter with better arrangement" is SO MUCH BETTER!!

Much easier to manage and replace the search criteria.

Thank you .

 

Message 9 of 10
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Re: Can I bulk revise some html in my items and if so how?

@imapaqrat 

 

I wrote a filter for the Active Content Sandbox, and the filter is included in this embedded link.

 

For reference, this is the text of the filter I created in the Sandbox:

Find:
/(\<a href="https*:\/\/(www|stores).ebay.com\/(str\/)*imapaqrat(\/_i.html)*\?_[bn]kw=([^&'" ]+)[^>]+?\>)/i

Replace
<a href="https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=<<+5>>&_ssn=imapaqrat&_oac=1 "target="_blank">

 

When you click the link above, the Sandbox tool will open, will load the linked item and the custom filter, and will automatically scan it and make the substitutions. Scroll down to the color-coded Markup Tab to see what has changed, if you wish.  Then open the Filtered tab to fetch the corrected code, or the popup preview to capture the rendered view. You should also see a "Revise" button on the Filtered tab that should open your eBay listing for revision (if you are already logged into your account).

 

Repeat for the next listing. Replace the item number in the top box of the tool and try a few other listings to see if the results pan out.

 

This is the type of filter that can be used in the bulk Active Content Editor to create a spreadsheet of revised descriptions that can be uploaded to eBay through Seller Hub. The bulk Active Content editor is the "everything all at once" solution to a description predicament such as yours.

 

ShipScript has been an eBay Community volunteer since 2003, specializing in HTML, CSS, Scripts, Photos, Active Content, Technical Solutions, and online Seller Tools.
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