Potential cause behind lost views--but all is not lost (insight from webmaster)

[atomicgirl2022]

So, in 2022 I was thinking of going back to eBay to start selling again after microstock dried up completely for me. This is why I came to the forums, to get a feel for how things were going. Then I read about how so many people had lost views suddenly in May.

I know what some of you are going to say. Yes, the pandemic and struggling economy definitely has something to do with this. However, I believe people's suspicions that there's also a technical factor at hand here. Given my history with affiliate marketing, I think I know what happened.

In reading multiple forum posts, I came across comments about eBay having gotten rid of bots. At some point, someone mentioned Google potentially playing a part, and that's when the alarm bells went off. 

The reason why is that once upon a time during the Jurassic Period, I was a full-fledged affiliate marketer. Part of being an affiliate marketer was always being aware of what the search engines were up to all the time, especially Google. In case you don't know, since 2011, Google has been rolling out these infamous updates called "Panda," which will knock back or even wipe out the views of popular websites overnight.

It doesn't matter how big the sites are or whether they've always been in good standing, either. For example, About.com disappeared not after Google rolled out one of the first Pandas, and huge sites like WiseGeek and others had their views cut by half.

When the first of a wave of Panda updates first started rolling out, I was at Squidoo. The site had been red-flagged by Google but was warned in advance to fix some of its problems or risk being penalized. Squidoo complied but was slammed eventually and died a year later.

My gut instinct is that this is what happened with eBay recently. Bots were getting out of control and Google warned eBay about them. It said, "Get rid of them or we will severely wipe you out." eBay complied, but lost traffic anyway--not because it was dinged in visibility but because it lost the benefit of those bots boosting views in Google. 

I wanted to make sure if my theories weren't just me speculating out of my tookus, so I started looking at SEO forums reacting to the latest Google updates in 2022. Everyone is pointing to the week of May 18th when everything went south. Webmasters are reporting that their sites have lost tons of visitors, and that junk sites like Pinterest and Quora are now dominating Google's searches (read reactions here: Google May 2022 Core Update Is Live - Here Is What We Are Seeing Early On (seroundtable.com)

Besides the recent Google update potentially throwing the monkey wrench in the gear words, I also realized the unfortunate fact that newer generation of shoppers are no longer looking to Google to search for stuff to buy or even do comparison shopping. They are going to Pinterest, Tik Tok, etc. or directly to places like Etsy.

Now, I know this all sounds very bleak, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe I'm hopeful because of where I live. I'm from NYC and even in a place as big as this, people are still marketing their services the old-fashioned way--fliers, postcards and business cards. Remember that you don't have to spend an arm and a leg to print something up and that maybe you can toss a few in a package for a customer to freely hand over to friends and family. Just because we are living in the digital age doesn't mean we still can't do things old school. 

[onlinecentral]

I searched my last 4 eBay sales on Google and 3 were right at the top of the search.

My hypothesis is that by ending and relisting to get better SEO on eBay, sellers are sacrificing SEO on Google.

I have been using Bing, the default search engine that came with the Edge Browser, since 1/26/2020 when I bought 2 refurbished computers on eBay. Except for the test searches I just ran, I would never search or see Google search results. There is some segment of the population that is immune to Google searches.

In one of those deals where truth is stranger than fiction, my sales are up 141.6% in May. Plus I have let the number of my listings dwindle down and have not been adding new listings.

[fashunu4eeuh]

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@fashunu4eeuh wrote:

Hmmm, interesting. 

Been here long enough to remember when Google apparently penalized eBay for its alleged improper optimization practices. So in 2014, Google lowered the boom on eBay and practically overnight, eBay pages were no longer given priority or inclusion in Search results. The details are a little foggy now, but i checked and found reporting that as much as 80% of eBay’s prime rankings was lost. Some said it was Panda, some said it was a “manual action” event by Google. Whatever it was, it hurt sales and traffic to eBay.

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Just to clarify, i should have written the above statement as “Whatever it was, it hurt sales and traffic to eBay back in 2014.”

Not talking about current times.

[1786davycrockett]

I, too, recall the legendary Google hurricane of late winter-early spring 2014 -- all too well!  

My  monthly sales were finally averaging $1000.00 per month in 2013, with up to 160 individual transactions each month.  But then -- BAM!!! -- it was as if someone had come along with a huge hatpin, and popped my Hindenburg-sized ballon. 

The following month, sales were down 80%.  The month after, another 15-20%.  And so on, and so on, until I was barely pulling in $200.00 each month.  And that's BEFORE deducting expenses.

It wasn't until the COVID epidemic & restrictions began in March 2020 that things began looking up again; but, as of February  2022, the downward slide has once again begun.

At least there's a reason now that makes more logical sense, than just eliminating bot views.

Hopefully the singularity of most of my old books and magazines will still attract the occasional buyer!

[chapeau-noir]

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@fashunu4eeuh wrote:

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@fashunu4eeuh wrote:

Hmmm, interesting. 

Been here long enough to remember when Google apparently penalized eBay for its alleged improper optimization practices. So in 2014, Google lowered the boom on eBay and practically overnight, eBay pages were no longer given priority or inclusion in Search results. The details are a little foggy now, but i checked and found reporting that as much as 80% of eBay’s prime rankings was lost. Some said it was Panda, some said it was a “manual action” event by Google. Whatever it was, it hurt sales and traffic to eBay.

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Just to clarify, i should have written the above statement as “Whatever it was, it hurt sales and traffic to eBay back in 2014.”

Not talking about current times.

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eBay has been squabbling with Google for years over search, payments, etc.  The structured catalog idea with its 'aspects' - designed to improve Google search, failed, and ideally the one good thing eBay has done for external search is scrapping the short-duration fixed price listings in favour of GTC (or at least 30 day minimum listing duration).

[m60driver]

Not that I can even to pretend to understand SEO jargon, but when Google updates their system it has always taken a few weeks for Ebay and other sites to adjust.  And when Ebay updates their system, like the recent category reorganization, it takes several weeks for sellers to adjust.   The easiest solution for sellers seems to be ending the items and relisting with sell similar.

I really doubt people are going direct to specific websites to search for an item unless they know that is the website of choice for a specific category.  I still find Google search to often be better than Ebay search to find items on Ebay.

And Google now uses this AI program called GPT-3 that not even the most senior techies who built the darn thing fully understand how it works, it seems to be a true black box.

[luckythewinner]

Then I read about how so many people had lost views suddenly in May.

eBay simply switched from showing count of all cumulative views to showing a count of recent views by humans.

[atomicgirl2022]

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@m60driver wrote:

I really doubt people are going direct to specific websites to search for an item unless they know that is the website of choice for a specific category. 

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If you doubt it, then I have bad news for you. Having been on the web as long as I have, I can tell you for a fact that smartphones and social media have dumbed down the internet for a new generation of users to such an extent that most of them only know how to do things through one platform or site. Keep in mind by "new generation", I'm not talking age-wise. I'm talking about the new wave of users who finally started heavily using the internet before "geeks" and "techies" were predominantly using it for the first 10 years or so.

For example, I have always been the "geeky one" in the family. Up until smartphones, none of my friends and family were into the internet except for MySpace and Facebook. Then the smartphones rolled out. They all became internet-heads, but only through whatever apps they had on their phones or whatever sites they were introduced to. They don't use Google, Bing, etc. to search at all. They just open their favorite app or platform and work from there.

For instance, a sister, as soon as she wants something, the first words out of her mouth is, "I'll go to Amazon to look for it." She does this for everything. I even tried turning her onto eBay, but it's no go. In her mind, when you shop offline you shop at Walmart, Costco, etc. but when you shop online it's Amazon and only Amazon. 

I don't have any "Etsy-heads" in the family but I do know that there are people whose minds work the same way: "I need something! Search on Etsy." Ditto Pinterest-heads. 

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@m60driver wrote:

And Google now uses this AI program called GPT-3 that not even the most senior techies who built the darn thing fully understand how it works, it seems to be a true black box.

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This is where I finally talk about generations in the "age" sense. What you're talking about is by design. They're trying to create a gigantic gap between themselves and the public. 

Unfortunately, this is the mindset of millenials and GenZs. Before them, the internet was supposed to be transparent so that everyone could do their part to contribute to the web. Now the new generation of techies deliberately use subterfuge and other methods to hide everything so that no one is able to compete with them or figure out what they're up to when they use the technology in unscrupulous ways. 

Also, it's part of the clever tactic of fueling the ageist nonsense that "old people are so clueless and out of touch" with everything. I'll be 50 next year, and it's all I can do to keep from putting my fist through the screen when I get comments about how everything must be so hard to understand or use. *rolls eyes*

[donsdetour]

Hmm I advise folks to use google to find what they want on eBay over eBay's search engine>

Does that fit your theory??

[memorymarielane]

I don't believe Google is to blame for what is happening on Ebay. I understand what you are saying, but is Google to blame for all the other reasons sales have gone down on Ebay when their seller updates come out every spring and fall; I don't think so.

[buyologist-3]

I vote for Atomicgirl for Prez. of eBay!  She has insight better than the folks currently in 'power'.  May I borrow a cup of brain cells, please?    

[glasser]

Thanks for this thorough report!

I think you are right in many regards. I do wonder to what extent eBay's overall use of paid search on Google has an impact as well. I do mostly antiques. When I search on Google (using same search terms I would on eBay) the ads are always for 1stdibs, etsy, chairish, etc. Never eBay. eBay results do come up later. They are few and far between.

Is Google penalizing eBay for spending less on ads?

on edge, I notice that eBay results are often for items that are no longer available and many beyond the 90 days so you see ooops we couldn't find it. Assume edge is not indexing as often or just and a clearing out old stuff.

I also wonder if the GTC actually hurts as I know one part of Google search algorithm is going to look for new content over old. I would assume like eBay older listings get pushed down results.

Not an etsy seller but believe you can actually boost your listings by paying for promotion on outside search engines. I assume that will be coming to eBay soon. Think, why should we (eBay) pay for general marketing when we can get sellers to do it. 

You comment on how people search now is important as well. Most people locked into an ecosystem. It's not that they have to fist search on Amazon for everything. It that they use an iPhone and search via the IOS installed browser or Android and the Google installed browser, and/or directly through an app into Amazon or eBay. So the dream of the internet making highly relevant results easily available across the whole ecosystem does not really exists. 

[chapeau-noir]

@glasser   I also wonder if the GTC actually hurts as I know one part of Google search algorithm is going to look for new content over old. I would assume like eBay older listings get pushed down results.

It takes anywhere from days to weeks for Google to crawl pages, images, etc. and index - "new" content in this context has a longer lifespan.  Those short duration listings of 5 or 7 days might not even exist long enough to be crawled before they lapse and the links are broken, which actually deprecates the content. 

[glasser]

@chapeau-noir that may be true for listings like auctions. However, when Google sees a page--lets say an iphone 11 listing that has been around for more than a year, it is going to likely push that way down.

I sell mostly by auction and I would never rely on a Google search to bring views. I count on a good title, low opening bids so I get bids early ( this in my experience ups in you in eBay searches and people tend to click on items with multiple bids). And my own marketing on social to drive views.

Overall impressions is not a good measure for me. It's views to followers that lets me know if my item will do well. If I maintain a ratio of around 20% followers to views, I can fine no matter if there are 400 views or 50 views.

[chapeau-noir]

Well, 5-7 days and an entire year are two different things.  An OOAK listing that has been up for a year without any change is pretty old, yes, but before GTC, sellers (including myself) were having FP listings lapse after 5-7-10 days and then renewing them, which was not conducive to being found on external search due to broken links.  This is something that GTC (or 30 days, really) was supposed to remedy.  Auctions are kind of a different animal and I also wouldn't rely on Google to send me the eyes.

[make-me-an-offer_will]

this makes so much sense! I wonder what ebay will do about it? If this goes on for 2 more weeks I'm sure there's bound to be a mass exodus of sellers.