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Documented Evidence; Ebay Is Erasing Page Views From Traffic Page; That Data Can Not Be Trusted
I have watched this since they changed the page view counting algorithm, supposedly to filter out the "bots". Everyone saw their page views plummet. Well, everyone other than the cheer leading section. I pointed out that watching the traffic page, I saw the page views tally daily, and then revise down by 85% after the third day. I've also pointed out that the majority of items I have sold in the last year, have had zero page views, and it is impossible to click to purchase an item without being on the listing page, where the purchase button is located.
I have been consistently told my witness testimony was "anecdotal", which is a dismissal of first person experience, by those who don't like the person's statement of that experience, and have no way to argue against it.
More recently, a lot of sellers complained that their impressions of promoted listings, and their sales, dropped through the floor. And there are fewer cheer leaders left.
I decided to take the time to screen shot the page view charts over several weeks, and put together a single graphic to show that Ebay is in fact deducting page views.
Does this mean that people viewing the listings are being unviewed? No. It means that the data can not be trusted. Because, if the data were valid, it would be valid on the first day, and would not change three days later.
These are screen shots taken in three day increments. I have lined up the days vertically, so the new days on the right show up on each chart below. The vertical scale changes from 100-400, but you can see that the last two or three days show huge numbers, which are consistently revised down.
We used to have a tool called "Omniture", that counted page view traffic, and gave links to where the traffic was coming from, from outside Ebay. That was useful. And that data never revised. They got rid of Omniture. And they gradually destroyed every tool after that, to the point that we are all out here, twisting in the wind, grasping at any possible reason for this ongoing disaster, with only the cheer leading section to tell us we are all wrong, everything is rosy, and we just need to throw everything we are trying to sell in the trash can, and go out and get whatever it is the cheer leaders are selling.
Meanwhile, I am supposed to believe people who tell me it is crazy that Ebay is ghosting or making sellers and their listings invisible, unless they pay for promotions, or jump through hoops, while they can not even be honest about how many times my listings are being looked at.
The cheer leaders argue that "page views aren't sales". Well, if someone can't find your listings, they can't (or aren't supposed to be able to) purchase your item. We have all kinds of evidence that people are not finding listings. Run a search and toggle between "Best Match" and "Price Low To High". Notice the different number of search results. I have 1,400+ listings with three key words, and 12 show up in the search results for those three terms, when toggled to "Price Low To High", which, by the way, is the setting people use to shop.
Just a hint: How you sort the results, is not supposed to change the number of the results. It is only supposed to change the order that the same number of results are displayed.
Shopping habits have shifted from stores to online, so much so that states passed online sales taxes. The economic situation has everyone looking for bargains, and shopping online more than ever. We are on a platform that was built to fill that niche (though it has been taken way sideways). We should be swamped in orders for products.
We are not. There are serious problems. We're getting a lot of spare time to see those problems, while trying to use the tools provided by Ebay to figure out where the problem is. And we're finding a lot of problems with the diagnostic tools, as shown above. And we know these are only emblematic of the deeper problems within the platform that are costing all of us money.
Ebay needs to fix the problems, and stop looking for new and more creative ways to screw things up.
jupiter_collectibles
·2 years agoI just noticed this myself. They keep going back and erasing page views and impressions from previous days. Showing that none of the information they give us is accurate. I now have documented evidence of them erasing page views and impressions. We need some transparency from eBay and they give us nothing. Not even accurate numbers to run our business off of....
kh-laura
·2 years agoHi everyone,
Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.
Thank you for understanding.
anjofak
·3 years agoI've been doing some revisions of no activitie listings and have been coming across item descriptions missing letters, words..along with having to end them to make changes because it's saying bids or offers.. those must be missing as well..lol
valueaddedresource
·3 years ago@o-kushon this has been happening for a long time - it's very common that if you keep track over several days (like you've done here) you will see the numbers change.
eBay's excuse for it is that it can take 72 hours for the reports to reconcile and they have a disclaimer to that effect in the info pop up on that page - obviously someone at eBay needs a lesson in what "near-real time" actually means. 😂
Official explanation from eBay staff when this was brought up on a previous thread:
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Significant-Drops-in-eBay-Impressions-and-Organic-Page-Views-A/m-p/33742422/highlight/true#M2210573
To be clear, I'm not saying you are wrong about there being a lot of very concerning problems with the data in these reports, just letting you know that eBay will say there's nothing wrong with what you are showing in your screenshots and it's all just working as intended with their 72 hour reconciliation.
wastingtime101
·3 years agoThat's pretty funny.
valueaddedresource
·3 years ago@wastingtime101 we have to laugh at it or else we'd cry, right? In the big scheme of things that's relatively minor, but it's just always struck me as funny that eBay uses 72 hours and "near-real time" in the same breath without apparently seeing any flaw in their logic.
o-kushon
OP3 years agoA question directed at the powers that be, if I am to accept their explanation/excuse:
Can you (the power that be) provide any examples of this reconciliation that _adds_ to the count of the views after 3 days?
How is it that these "honest mistakes" are always over counts, and always result in a reduction of the daily total by 85%. And how does it always take three days to determine this ongoing and repeated error?
Because when the "correction" always benefits one side, and not the other, then it indicates that the game is rigged.
We've all been exposed to too much Orwellian doublespeak covering up outright chicanery, over the last couple years, for such thin and obvious deception to be believed.
valueaddedresource
·3 years ago@o-kushon those are all great questions and while I won't hold my breath, I'll continue to hold out hope that eBay might one day make a good faith effort to live up to their buzzword promises of transparency and seller engagement by addressing these issues.
cardxcraft
·3 years agoThe seller hub data is without a doubt corrupted and skewed; and would not hold merit when subjected to the scientific process.
A few days a go a poster demonstrated, or more like stated how it's possible to sell an item without a customer ever viewing the item. Whether its true or not I don't know. But, I highly doubt buyers, en mass, are stealthily perusing our stores so as not to give us any views.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Thanks for putting in the effort to write out your experiences. I commend you.
valueaddedresource
·3 years ago@cardxcraft you can test that one yourself - do any search on eBay and instead of clicking through to go to the item page, just click or tap the little heart icon.
Then navigate to your watchlist https://www.ebay.com/mye/myebay/watchlist and you'll find a big blue Buy It Now button that will take you to check out and allow you to complete the purchase all without ever actually going to the full listing page (which is what would count as a view).
And that is just one of several ways in which a buyer may find an item and complete a purchase in a way that will not register a "view" (as it is defined by eBay) in seller facing reports.
eburtonlab
·3 years agoUsing the Buy-It-Now button on my Watch List page takes me to the item listing when using my desktop browser; whether that counts as a "view", I am not entirely certain. But the page address does not appear to be different than when loading the same page via search results, so I am inclined to think it should count as a "view".
But there is at least one way I have seen to make a purchase without ever viewing the item page or watching an item listing at all.
If you perform an external search (such as via Google) you may be directed to a product page rather than an item listing. The Buy-It-Now on the product page goes directly to the cart without ever opening the item page.
An example of a product page:
https://www.ebay.com/p/15039035368
It is possible that eBay counts the loading of the product page as a "view" for the seller whose listing appears at the top of the queue, but I cannot readily prove that one way or the other.
valueaddedresource
·3 years ago@eburtonlab thanks for that - I stand corrected....pretty sure in the past I've been able to go directly to checkout from the watch list but you're right, that doesn't seem to be how it works now.
I believe you're also right about product pages and I know if a buyer uses the Quick View functionality either from Search or from a seller's Store page, it will allow them to go all the way through checkout without viewing the listing page.
wastingtime101
·3 years agoI confess I did not read your entire post.
In my experience, listing views have never been accurate.
Since eBay changed the listing view counter to remove bot views and the numbers are smaller it's easier to spot discrepancies. Something I see with almost every new listing I put up:
Listing has X views on day 1, Y views on day 2, then on day 3 or 4 that number suddenly goes down.
Obviously there's an issue with that view counter when a listing shows fewer views today than it did yesterday and it's been live for less than a week so there are no "30+ day drop offs".
I've never trusted the view counter.