ShipScript has been an eBay Community volunteer since 2003, specializing in HTML, CSS, Scripts, Photos, Active Content, Technical Solutions, and online Seller Tools.
As we remember from our recent examination of listings, eBay has been removing weblinks during the process of displaying them on the site. The original code is not changed, while the displayed version is purged of links.
For instance, I have both non-secure and non-eBay links in this test listing.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/382049182750
The non-secure links put the description one click away. You will then notice that the links are not clickable because eBay has purged the violating hyperlinks. Nonetheless, those violations did not hide my listing from search.
eBay has, in the past, declared that violating listings will be hidden or demoted in search. But so far, my many violating test listings still appear, whether I'm logged in or viewing from an anonymous browser, although they are probably demoted in best match.
My most recent warning letters proclaim:
Mar 01: 5 of your listings contain(s) contact information such as phone number, email address or weblinks, which is in violation of listing policies. Non-compliant listings will soon be blocked.
(Since none of my listings have email or phone number, the above specifically addresses weblinks.)
3 of your listings contain(s) active content such as JavaScript, form actions, etc. Going forward, in order to improve buyer experience, active content will not be rendered. As a result, listings with active content might not display correctly to buyers.
May 20: 5 of your listings contain(s) active content such as JavaScript, form actions, etc. Going forward, in order to improve buyer experience, active content will not be rendered. As a result, listings with active content might not display correctly to buyers.
(The Active Content Scanner shows that I have 5 listings with Active content, so the May 20 warning is truly about Active content and not about weblinks.)
13 of your listings contain(s) non-secure HTTP content. Remove any non-secure content to ensure buyers enjoy the best buying experience when browsing your listings. Learn more about browser security warnings.
(If I group all of my listings that have HTTP issues, bad targets, and weblinks, they total 13 listings.)
My interpretation of the warnings is that relists will be blocked, and that existing listings may not display correctly due to removal of some content. However, I suppose we could read that to mean the listings with active content might not display at all. But so far, that's not what I'm seeing. Search displays all 37 of my US listings.
We did encounter one seller whose listings were indeed hidden, but that turns out to be a situation where the seller was missing a return policy and had ignored all notifications to fix the problem. The listings were still available, but zero displayed in search or on his seller page or store page.
So, based on the screenshots provided by @thepurplekattery , I'm going to speculate that the long hiatus from selling, and the change of selling category, meant the listings went from the robot filters into the human screening filter to look for account hijackings before appearing live on the site. There is a 50-50 chance this was a cache issue displaying the no-listings view, so when the violating links were removed, the browser cache was updated with the new listing revisions.
Otherwise, if eBay was truly blocking listings from going forward, a warning message would have appeared on the listing form preventing submission of the listing until the violation was repaired.
