External Page Views

[penguins_dont_fly]

I'm sitting here on Christmas morning, just lazing around and randomly looking at things.

I peeked at my Traffic statistics ... has anybody else's "External Page VIews" increased dramatically? Is eBay actually advertising, or is this a fluke?

I really wish that eBay would give some insight into where these external page views were coming from ... like Google Analytics does.

[farmalljr]

Yes, my external page views, like yours are up over 1000%. Yes I mean up over ONE THOUSAND percent. 

If you keep an eye on your daily impressions, you will likely notice, like I have, that a few days after reporting a certain day, the view numbers reported, drop. I've noticed drops for days dropping as much as 20%. This is concerning to me. Mainly because I can't trust or lay any faith into what eBay is reporting to me. I would like accuracy!

Another report/analytic I would like to see, is how many actual sales are coming from outside views from eBay. Currently they report organic and promoted sales. It would be helpful for future listing aspects, to learn what sales are coming from where. This may mean we change how we keyword certain listings. I don't care where sales come from, I just want to know where so I can drive more sales. I've never had a sale, that I am aware of, that the buyer was labeled as a "guest". Everyone has always had an ID. 

[penguins_dont_fly]

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@farmalljr wrote:

I've never had a sale, that I am aware of, that the buyer was labeled as a "guest". Everyone has always had an ID. 

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@farmalljr 

FYI, eBay gives a random ID to "guests" ... they are never labeled as such.  They appear as new zero-feedback members ... you can't tell the difference.

The ID used to be pretty discernible because it was just a random jumble of numbers and letters, but that seems to have changed to a lastnamefirstname_number format,  just like a new member who doesn't change their ID.

[ceyvov_0]

Statistics never tell the whole story.

[pburn]

This seems like a topic @zamo-zuan would find interesting, if s/he's around during this holiday season!

[farmalljr]

It would be helpful, if somewhere, eBay marked a sale from an outside search source. That would give me the ability to analyze the listing/item so I can key in on demand from outside sources of advertising. If I can key in on what Google or other advertising sources are using to show my item, I can then take action to increase my sales through those avenues. 

Like you have pointed out, all ID's seem to be what I would normally expect to see. Nothing denotes a guest from a regular user of the platform. 

Sharing this type of information will help me, AND eBay. If I do what is needed to drive more sales, eBay in turn gets more sales fees. 

[farmalljr]

To add, there are times I have searched through Google, and ended up buying the item on eBay through a click on Google's search. How many times is that happening? If we knew that as well, it helps us analyze the listings selling that way, and find ways to repeat and increase the sales. 

[maros9416]

What is boosting those views is there is something in your listings that is making it easier for Google to index. I've searched around and found some useful info on small things that can be done to gain Google exposure. The simplest thing is to rename your photos with keywords instead of the default dsc0000 titles that the camera gives. So if I had pair of Levi's 501 jeans, I would rename the photos ' levi's mens 501 button fly jeans indigo '. It seems to be working for me. Meta tags are another way to increase Google visibility. 

[zamo-zuan]

Ours have stayed stable, but it's certainly a good thing if your traffic has increased!

Most likely it would be Google as they have the most traffic passing through. It's hard to say if it's advertising or that you just started ranking well. But as we can see, something happened/changed! Might have been that Google picked up some of your listings and with increased traffic for the holidays it gave a nice boost!

EBay has mentioned on several occasions this year that they're doing some "tests" in situations that have caused large changes in impressions. This hasn't always been a good thing for sellers and seems to vary category by category. But it's nice to see that this time it has worked out well for you! Hopefully this has led to an increase in purchases as well!

I do know that eBay is working on some features that will say if there's a problem with being included on Google and give you information on how you could get your items included. But I don't know that they're giving you some insights on external page views. 

In any case, it's *extremely rare* to see external views even surpass your organic/promoted views. A very nice present for the holidays!

[luckythewinner]

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@ceyvov_0 wrote:

Statistics never tell the whole story.

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Whenever a website displays information on the screen, there are always four possibilities: 

• the underlying information is correct, and that information is being displayed accurately;
• the underlying information is correct, but that information is being displayed inaccurately;
• the underlying information is incorrect, and that information is being displayed accurately;
• the underlying information is incorrect, and that information is being displayed inaccurately.