ShipScript has been an eBay Community volunteer since 2003, specializing in HTML, CSS, Scripts, Photos, Active Content, Technical Solutions, and online Seller Tools.
A lot of people still have questions on this topic (http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/sprupd16/view-item.html) and a handful of you asked me to create a dedicated thread, so here goes...
For a while now eBay has been optimizing item descriptions for small mobile screens by showing small portions of the full descriptions based on keywords - the full description is still viewable but the link can be hard to find.
With the new changes (which I think are good) eBay is giving options for sellers to optimize their own descriptions for mobile listings and they are also making the link to view full description much more prominent.
Here's how it works:
eBay, based on keywords, will automatically select a limit of 250 characters (not words) from your description to show on mobile view. This is something they have been doing for a while now. In the example they provided via the Seller Update, that description was just 139 characters. They could have included the second sentence in the provided example and still only hit 230 characters, but the bots only picked up keywords in the first sentence so only 139 characters were displayed. So again, they will show UP TO 250 characters.
Mobile view is also being enhanced by including a prominent "Read more" link at the bottom so buyers can easily click through to view the full description. here is a screenshot as provided by an eBay Blue:
If your full item description is less than 800 characters (I am reading that as 799 or less) and uses HTML, CSS, or text-only then eBay will, by default, show the entire description of up to 799 characters instead of pulling out text to fit within the 250 limit.
Some people have asked if eBay can pull 800 characters for mobile why are they defaulting to a limit of 250 if your description is more than 800? Faster load time would be my guess.
You don't need to do anything and eBay will optimize your descriptions as noted above by default. Again, for a while now eBay has already been pulling summaries of up to 250 for mobile, but now the link to view full description is going to be more clear and if your description is less than 800 characters they will show the full description by default. More info about how to optimize your listings without customizing text here: http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/sprupd16/view-item.html#tab=what-you-need-to-do
eBay is adding the option for you to choose your own text for optimized mobile views. If you DO want to customize then keep reading.
If your listing is 800 or more characters you have the option of using html tagging to choose which part of the description is optimized for mobile but the text needs to be consecutive - like you can't choose a sentence from the top of the description and another from the bottom. If you choose to do this, the html that can be used is shown on the FAQ page. http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/sprupd16/view-item.html#tab=faqs&faq=faq-vi-q09
General html tags (like tagging for a bold font) do not apply towards the character count. HTML tags that use up space (like a space between characters or a line break) do count in the 800 character count. A line break counts as 50 characters since that's about how many characters will display across a line on the mobile view. If you are using something like a Word document to count characters for you (no word yet on whether eBay will provide a character counter), please keep in mind how many characters a line break takes up.
If you tag more than 800 characters, eBay "will truncate the selection to below 800 characters. We will remove whole words to get below 800 characters, not partial words."
The official roll-out is this summer (I believe May 1st), but if you start html tagging now there will be "no visible impact on your listings". So if you want to start tagging now you can, it just won't go into effect yet. Do keep in mind that eBay has said they are going to provide some tools to help with this. They have not said what those tools will be yet. I made a suggestion that eBay implement these types of tools (and I hope they will take it under consideration): http://community.ebay.com/t5/2016-Spring-Seller-Update/Suggestion-for-Mobile-Optimized-Descriptions/...
I honestly do think this is a good change. It's enhancing the way mobile is currently handled and it's also giving sellers the option of customization if they so choose. Now, if only they would fix that "free shipping" glitch... 🙂
eBay's wrapper tags are meant to surround your existing text that you would like eBay to duplicate in the mobile summary view.
So, look at your normal description and put the tags around the text that is to be extracted for the summary. The text will continue to appear in your description. However, it will now also appear in summary view.
As an example, the item description in my test listing says:
Please do not bid. This is a test of CSS-only page elements. The drop menu on top, popup menu at the bottom, both photo galleries (rollover and clickable), both sets of terms tabs, the font selector, and the promo gallery are all based on CSS3 styles that detect hover states and click states.
To be compliant with eBay's 2017 policies, all active content, such as javascript, flash, embed, objects, and such, will be removed from listings, so now is the time to begin designing your replacement elements.
Normally, photo galleries and terms tabs are created with javascript. However, the photo galleries, tabs and menus on this page are created with pure CSS, so they will be compliant with eBay's policies next year.
I put the wrapper tags around the last two paragraphs, so all three paragraphs display in the item description, while only the last two paragraphs additionally display in the mobile summary box -- which is how eBay intends the tags be used. Below is how I tagged that text:
<p> Please do not bid. This is a test of CSS-only page elements. The drop menu on top, popup menu at the bottom, both photo galleries (rollover and clickable), both sets of terms tabs, the font selector, and the promo gallery are all based on CSS3 styles that detect hover states and click states. </p>
<!-- begin mobile summary text --> <div vocab="http://schema.org/" typeof="Product"><span property="description"> <p> To be compliant with eBay's 2017 policies, all active content, such as javascript, flash, embed, objects, and such, will be removed from listings, so now is the time to begin designing your replacement elements. </p> <p> Normally, photo galleries and terms tabs are created with javascript. However, the photo galleries, tabs and menus on this page are created with pure CSS, so they will be compliant with eBay's policies next year. </p> </span></div>
<!-- end of mobile summary text -->
I suppose what some of you are requesting is the ability to show summary text that is different than the item description. I think this is possible using CSS to hide some of the text, however, hidden text may not stay hidden in the Mobile App. We'll need to do some testing now to discover the extent of our flexibility.
This thread is quite old and there are now some differences in ebay's implementation. For instance, in early tests, I show a <p> tag included in the summary. That no longer works and will cause eBay to display nothing on mobile.
Instead, we must avoid placing any tags within the summary that are not on eBay's list.
http://pages.ebay.com/sell/itemdescription/customizeyoursummary.html
I've created a new listing to test your question and the one preceding yours.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/382084573431
And have marked off the top part of the description as a mobile summary.
<div vocab="http://schema.org/" typeof="Product"> <span property="description" style="display:none"> This is a mobile summary test of text that won't display in the description, but is destined to display on mobile devices. Styled and scripted content usually becomes corrupted after a pass through eBay's editors. <br>This tabbed content is designed to survive editing within eBay's Description Editor and Turbo Lister. The problem with typical tabbed designs is that scripts and/or CSS are required to run the tabbed content. These external scripts and styles are usually stripped off by the editor, rendering the code useless. If the user is instructed to avoid the editor to circumvent the problem, the content must be edited within the HTML, which can be difficult for some. </span></div>
The style below was added to the mobile summary to hide the display in desktop browsers.
<div vocab="http://schema.org/" typeof="Product">
<span property="description" style="display:none">The desktop hides the selected text, and, when first listed, eBay's meta tag pulls only the item title.
<meta Property="og:description" Content="This is a Mobile Summary test - please do not bid | Everything Else, Test Auctions, General | eBay!" />
But as the listing is indexed, the mobile summary will be pulled by eBay to create a new og:description meta tag that will be used by google and other search engines to populate their search results. That tag will also be used by social media and other shopping consolidators, as will as being presented to mobile users.
While typing this, eBay has been working, and now when I view the source of my listing, the meta tag displays the text that I had marked off. I presume it will also show on mobile devices, but don't have one handy. In earlier tests, it has also been confirmed that revisions to the mobile summary will propagate to the meta tag and mobile summary after a few minutes in the indexing process.
<meta Property="og:description" Content="This is a mobile summary test of text that won't display in the description, but is destined to display on mobile devices. Styled and scripted content usually becomes corrupted after a pass through eBay's editors. This tabbed content is designed to survive editing within eBay's Description Editor and Turbo Lister. The problem with typical tabbed designs is that scripts and/or CSS are required to run the tabbed content. These external scripts and styles are usually stripped off by the editor, rendering the code useless. If the user is instructed to avoid the editor to circumvent the problem, the content must be edited within the HTML, which can be difficult for some. | eBay!" />
Notice that there is a line break in the og:description summary which is an implementation of the <br> that I included in the original code. In recent tests we found that the <br> tag does not carry into the mobile summary display. The mobile device just displays a solid block of text. Probably a bug that may be fixed later.
eBay once said they might have a special section where sellers could fill in the mobile summary. I don't know if they are working toward that goal. The Active Content issue has probably gotten in the way for now.
(1) QUESTION: This works for now, but will ‘the powers that be’ later decide that a Seller can’t use this code (I know you can’t predict the future; I guess I’m just looking for some insight / what you think may happen) ?
It doesn't seem likely to me that they would take issue with styles added to the tag. We have seen that it does not interfere with their ability to extract the info.
(2a) QUESTION: Just to be clear. The text put in the mobile summary by the Seller - using your improved code - is this the Only text that will be searched/indexed by other search engines ?
Likely not. The search engines have their own preferences.
(2b) QUESTION: Is the rest of the sellers Description and/or Title not used by the Search Engines ? (A Description that will not be put in the mobile summary using your code - if the seller has a large Description over 800 characters) ?
The search engines will work with whatever information resides in eBay's outer frame, like title, subtitle, price, item specifics, and the meta tags. The og:description just makes it easier for other platforms to limit their search to more relevant info, and it provides missing info for tools that had no access to your description. It is hard to know whether the search engines will dig deeper when an og:description is provided as a shortcut.
At one time, when a non-browser (like a search engine) requested a listing page, eBay delivered a single page with all info embedded. I don't know if they continue to do that now that the item description is maintained in its own page. When we look at a listing through a browser, the item description is not really part of the listing page. eBay provides a window in the listing and they display the description page in that window. I don't have enough info for a complete answer because I don't know if eBay still provides a flat page to the crawlers.
(3) “to see my full description and additional pictures - click on the provided link”
"Click for more" is a bad idea in light of the opportunities being thrown away.
(4) Is this code ( og description meta tag ) just part of the index engine, which you showed, just to give a complete understanding of what is going on behind the scenes ?
eBay's idexing extracts the mobile summary and adds it to their database for your item, and then whenever eBay delivers a listing page, that summary is written to eBay's page header, which is outside of your description. When you "view source" on an eBay page, you will see those "og" headers at the top of eBay's page. "og" stands for "open graph", which is a facebook invention for sharing rich content from other sites.
(5.) FYI - there was Not a ‘link’ on my phone to go to the full description. There was only a hard to see, light grey, and small >
True, not very intuitive; so it's best to put something useful in summary. You can put something at the end of your summary like "Read more...", which might prompt the visitor to look around.
(3) '"Click for more" is a bad idea in light of the opportunities being thrown away."
QUESTION: The opportunities being, to put in the mobile summary relevant information to the item you are selling (so search engines and the buyer can access this info) ?
@hardrockpinstore - Yes, that opportunity to reach a wider audience.
Does anyone still have contact with the OP of this thread? Black*bird singing aka prefontained? Went missing a while ago from the ebay boards. Since I don't do facebook was wondering if s/he's over there. Missed. 
