Ebay showing my listings in random wrong categories with mangled titles & descriptions

[patentearth]

I've been trying to figure out why my Ebay traffic and sales have been in steady decline for the past several weeks, and today I took a look to see what my Ebay listings are looking like in Google. What I discovered was both surprising and very frustrating, and I'm curious to know if any other sellers are seeing this.

I ran this search in google:

"patentearth" site:ebay.com

And in the first couple of pages of results I found pages like this: https://www.ebay.com/c/1633252074

This is a listing for a framed surfboard art print, and for some reason Ebay is showing it in the "Siberian Husky Collectibles" category. The listing title appears correctly on the page, but the title tag reads:

11 X 14 Print Red Siberian Husky Dog Surfer Dude Surf Surfboard Surfing Pop Art for sale online

W T F? "11 x 14" and "Red" appear to be partial snippets of randomly selected variations. The random Siberian Husky references are crammed in apparently because of the (incorrect) category association. And I have no idea where it's getting "Pop Art", that doesn't appear in the listing at all. Here's a screenshot showing the title tag and category:

The description is borked too, they just took random sentences from the description and mashed them together. And if you click "See All", instead of expanding to display the description it takes you to a separate page showing NOTHING BUT the description. It's like this page was designed to be confusing to both human users and search engines alike.

But when I open go to my inventory in My Ebay and open the listing, I get this page which shows the listing looking perfectly normal: https://www.ebay.com/itm/253048995288

And of course I checked the listing to double check the category assignments, and they are also correct. It shows this item is linked only to the "Art Prints" category. Here's a screenshot:

This is just one example, but I am finding several of these butchered & erroneous listings in Google's results. And I suspect that the fact that these garbage pages exist, and Google is finding and indexing these SEO nightmares, may at least partly explain why my traffic & sales are drying up.

Are any other sellers running into these listings? Can anybody on this discussion board that works for Ebay explain what is going on with these pages?

[Anonymous]

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@autopiacarcare wrote:

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It was either that or Skynet.    I've joked before that we sell carnauba wax that comes from Brazil, not that other kind of Brazilian wax. I guess eBay isn't smart enough to figure out the difference.

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List something turkey for Thanksgiving and eBay will keep insisting that you make the country of origin Turkey. List something pumpkin for fall and eBay will keep insisting that the color is orange. No, eBay's AI is not smart enough to know the difference.

[autopiacarcare]

@a_c_green  @patentearth  - that's a good catch, and I'm sure that will help that actual listing page.  However, it may not be anything we can do anything about as far as the way it is displaying on the "/c/" pages.

Our "/c/" pages also display that way with the isolated description.  In our case, the description does include our custom listing template as well, but basically it is still just what is listed in the "description" field. All of our links are HTTPS and our template was designed by an eBay authorized 3rd party design company to be compliant with eBay's HTTPS requirements, but like you, when I look at that isolated description from a "/c/" page, it says it is not secure.

I scoured the source info for that page and the only non-https content I could find in the isolated description appears to be script inserted by eBay. 

script src="http://ir.ebaystatic.com/rs/v/1yzqmzxk3a3utciscis2t10n1uu.js" type="text/javascript"></script><img src='http://rover.ebay.com/roversync/?site=0&stg=1&mpt=1572369425062'></img

When I check our description on the actual listing page by that item number, all links are HTTPS and it passes all tests in the item description checker.  I think it is just one more thing about how eBay created those "/c/" pages that is messed up.  Since we as the seller have no control over those pages, I don't think there is going to be anything we can do about how those descriptions display.

[dtexley3]

Thanks for the tag @autopiacarcare .  I looked through a bunch of my listings and found some odd /c/ and /p/ links as well and my items arent in the affected categories.  Since the errors appear to be when we search in google for items I suspect the recent changes had an severe unintended impact on eBay's google feed.  Try limiting the history by time using the Tools and set the "any time" to the various timeframes and see what results you get.

I maintain that eBay has ineffective policies, procedures and tools to complete proper automated unit testing of the changes they are constantly implementing.  Each change and the resulting "fixes" are ripples through the system that's been patched hundreds if not thousands of time with no real, intensive, effective testing.  I don't know if it's a failure due to inadequate policies and procedures, inadequate enforcement of testing polices and procedures or management pressure to hit release dates regardless of whether testing is complete or the code passes.

[autopiacarcare]

I found another one this morning for that same wax - this time in the Ancient Roman Coins category.

[autopiacarcare]

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@autopiacarcare wrote:

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Not sure if Sporting Goods was one of the ones with recent changes.  I'll have to look deeper into that.

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@patentearth  - Just to follow up on this, it does look  like there was a name change in a couple of the sub-categories in Sporting Goods.

Sporting Goods | ID: 888

Water Sports | ID: 159136

Scuba & Snorkeling | ID: 16052

Renamed from [SCUBA & Snorkeling]

Other Scuba & Snorkeling | ID: 1300

Renamed from [Other SCUBA & Snorkeling]

It could still just be coincidence, but all of the examples I have seen so far at least seem to have the "/c/" page showing in a category where the top level category is one that had at least one sub-category change in the October 15th update.  Even the coin one I found for our wax listing this morning would fit that profile because coins are under Collectibles, as are sports trading cards like the other one I found.

Piggybacking on @dtexley3 's thoughts on the Google feeds, I'm thinking eBay got a bunch of data mixed up when they tried to push out updates to Google for the updated categories.

[ekmadonna]

I just tried relisting a Vintage BLUE POINT Kenosha, Wisconsin 16 oz ball peen hammer and am getting a RED ERROR MESSAGE stating NOT TO RELIST this item because it VIOLATES THE TOBACCO POLICY? Are you kidding me, it a freakin hammer and has been listed at least 2 or 3 times previously. I am wondering if this is connected with what you all are reporting? Tyler Trinton please help! Why is this happening?

[dtexley3]

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@ekmadonna wrote:

I just tried relisting a Vintage BLUE POINT Kenosha, Wisconsin 16 oz ball peen hammer and am getting a RED ERROR MESSAGE stating NOT TO RELIST this item because it VIOLATES THE TOBACCO POLICY? Are you kidding me, it a freakin hammer and has been listed at least 2 or 3 times previously. I am wondering if this is connected with what you all are reporting? Tyler Trinton please help! Why is this happening?

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@ekmadonna I recommend you contact eBay via facebook or twitter with this information, or call customer service.  You can, if you choose, also start a new thread in the technical forums and page the blues there.  You'll probably have more traction with a separate thread.  There have been multiple reports for months regarding eBay blocking listings for ridiculous mis-identification of items.

[autopiacarcare]

Also, something in that link from @go-bad-chicken caught my eye.

These changes should ensure that your listings appear in the relevant categories. Buyers will find it quicker and easier to discover your items - especially on mobile devices.

When the category structure changes, your listings may be automatically moved to another category, based on the item specifications that you provided.

Aligning categories across international eBay sites will make cross-country trading on the eBay sites easier.

1.) Mobile Devices - what we are seeing with the isolated descriptions is exactly what eBay was doing to non-https descriptions back in 2017 when they were making a lot of changes geared toward being more "mobile friendly".  When you are using the eBay App on a mobile device, you have to click "read more" which basically then just shows you a window with only the description.  Within the app, it doesn't actually display as a separate web page exactly, but it is a stand alone description.

3.)Aligning categories across international sites -  In my searching for "c" pages for our listings, I have also gotten some Google results that show the catalog page in a different language.  Is anyone else seeing that as well?

[patentearth]

@autopiacarcare @dtexley3 I don't doubt that their Google feed was affected as well but isn't limited to the feed. The fact that Ebay is still rendering those pages with bad data means there's actually a data set that it's pulling that data from somewhere. And the fact that standard /itm/ pages render correctly means that the data is still in tact somewhere. Either they've got multiple data sets, 1 that's OK and others that are messed up but still in use for some reason - or there is some weird logic that is "translating" the data incorrectly on the fly when producing the /c/ type pages.

[dtexley3]

Knowing from previous conversations on shipping costs I know that eBay doesn't believe in reusable code to any extent.  I would put money on the fact that code that pulls items vs catalog vs product pages were all likely written by different teams and each team didn't work with the code from the other.  It's called silo programming and it's one of the hardest behaviors for any large company to break out of.

[ekmadonna]

Thanks for the response, I did get the item to relist on the 9th try by switching the title around somewhat with ALL words intact. I put BLUE POINT followed by Kenosha, Wisc instead of the "PP" I had after Blue Point and it went through, but really should have never happened in the first place. I am wondering if "BLUE POINT PP" is possibly a e-cig brand name or something? Like I mentioned this is not a brand new listing and has been listed at least 2 other times with no issues. but thanks for the help, I think I will let this one sleep for now.

[brian@ebay]

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doug@ebay wrote:

@patentearth the team will look into this and see what we can find out.

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@patentearth wrote:

doug@ebay doug@ebay I will run it by support but it appears that I am not the only seller affected by this. And it definitely is not a browser issue.

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Hi everyone, this page format is a specific type of purchase page optimized for SEO (specifically aligned to receive and funnel Google Traffic for more obscure searches where seller's inventory on eBay may be limited). It's not a test page, but a format that's been in place for nearly a year.

The issue pointed out regarding the category display IS a known tech issue that is being worked on currently - thank you for getting us this example so we can get it added to the open ticket!

[autopiacarcare]

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brian@ebay wrote:

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doug@ebay wrote:

@patentearth the team will look into this and see what we can find out.

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@patentearth wrote:

doug@ebay doug@ebay I will run it by support but it appears that I am not the only seller affected by this. And it definitely is not a browser issue.

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Hi everyone, this page format is a specific type of purchase page optimized for SEO (specifically aligned to receive and funnel Google Traffic for more obscure searches where seller's inventory on eBay may be limited). It's not a test page, but a format that's been in place for nearly a year.

The issue pointed out regarding the category display IS a known tech issue that is being worked on currently - thank you for getting us this example so we can get it added to the open ticket!

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Thanks brian@ebay .  Can you confirm if it is normal for there to be multiple pages with this format for a single listing?  Aside from the category issues, what concerned me was seeing multiple "c" pages that all had different ID numbers in the URL, but were all for the same listing.

I know Google is not a fan of duplicate content, so it makes me wonder if having multiple pages with the same product info is going to cause issues.  If there are not supposed to be multiple pages in that format for one listing, I'd like to know how eBay is going to handle those extra pages.  Will there be one page with the correct category and then all of the other URLs will redirect there?

[patentearth]

Appreciate the follow up brian@ebay. I guess it's good that you guys are working on the category issue, but I agree with @autopiacarcare and wish to re-iterate the concern I've already voiced in this thread, which is that these pages are likely doing more harm than good for your SEO.

I've worked on websites that saw their organic traffic drop dramatically as a result of dupe content due to things like runaway dynamic pages - this is a similar situation. Not sure how much of an impact it makes on site Ebay's size but I wouldn't expect the results to be positive.

Google is also looking at bounce rates, and at least in my case I bet these pages bounce close to 100%. In my OP I mentioned this title which is being generated for an item I sell:
"11 X 14 Print Red Siberian Husky Dog Surfer Dude Surf Surfboard Surfing Pop Art for sale online"

It's an art print that features a surfboard. Nothing to do with dogs. Odds are nobody is going to search Google for "surf board art" and get that result - and if they do, they aren't clicking on it because they're not looking anything related to siberian huskys (CTR is another signal).

Somebody searching for "siberian husky dog art" might get that result and click on it, but they're going to be disappointed when they're presented with a surf board design that has nothing to do with dogs. I know you don't use GA but Google still knows it's a bounce when people resume their search 2 seconds after clicking a link and I'm sure that is exactly what would happen in this scenario.

Perhaps these keywords are so irrelevant due to the inaccurate categories and that may get fixed, but even if you were pulling in keywords from other art products - they still wouldn't be meaningfully relevant to the product I'm selling. And they wouldn't introduce any new keywords that aren't already present on the product pages they *belong* to.

I think these pages are spammy and likely add no value (or negative value) to your SEO. My 2 cents.

[brian@ebay]

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@autopiacarcare wrote:

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brian@ebay wrote:

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doug@ebay wrote:

@patentearth the team will look into this and see what we can find out.

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@patentearth wrote:

doug@ebay doug@ebay I will run it by support but it appears that I am not the only seller affected by this. And it definitely is not a browser issue.

---

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Hi everyone, this page format is a specific type of purchase page optimized for SEO (specifically aligned to receive and funnel Google Traffic for more obscure searches where seller's inventory on eBay may be limited). It's not a test page, but a format that's been in place for nearly a year.

The issue pointed out regarding the category display IS a known tech issue that is being worked on currently - thank you for getting us this example so we can get it added to the open ticket!

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Thanks brian@ebay .  Can you confirm if it is normal for there to be multiple pages with this format for a single listing?  Aside from the category issues, what concerned me was seeing multiple "c" pages that all had different ID numbers in the URL, but were all for the same listing.

I know Google is not a fan of duplicate content, so it makes me wonder if having multiple pages with the same product info is going to cause issues.  If there are not supposed to be multiple pages in that format for one listing, I'd like to know how eBay is going to handle those extra pages.  Will there be one page with the correct category and then all of the other URLs will redirect there?

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Hi @autopiacarcare, the developers over these pages reviewed this thread. I will be sure they see this comment as well. We appreciate the feedback you and others have provided!