Sales Stopped after Changed Keywords

[uniques_byaa]

Hi,

I am selling about 2 years on ebay and i have about 30pieces / 3500$ sales per month. About 20 days ago i changed my keywords used in my eBay Store. I mean store's front page and category keywords.

Now they are as like at the attachment..

And there is no any sales in last 20 days. Very am i do wrong? Is there anybody can help me please?

Thanks

selim

[dhbookds]

not sure I understand what you are saying........  In looking at your solds, you've sold 11 since April 1...

BUT in looking at your listing......it seems strange..........this is what I see

and there is a lot more black space in the description area.......  As a buyer I would wonder what "in there" that isn't shown? 

[berserkerplanet]

It's multiple missing photos with Photobucket "Pay US $400" banners.
The listings (at least the one I looked at) are a mess as a result.

[redfis98]

Your listings look really bad on mobile

[tiramisu41]

@uniques_byaa

I don't think your problem has anything to do with changing keywords.  I think your sales are down because no one can see the content that's supposed to be in the "description" area of your listings -- as other posters have noted, right now this area is essentially a series of big, black blocks of color.

It looks like something is either wrong with your template and/or your photos which apparently you are using Photobucket to host.   To your knowledge, did this problem just start?  I'm wondering whether this has something to do with eBay prohibiting all Active Content in listings, but that change occurred nearly a year ago.

Another poster here -- @shipscript - is much more knowledgeable about coding than I am.  Since I tagged him in this message I am hoping he might stop by and will be able to provide some input about what it is he thinks is going on with your store.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

[loveyourimagination49]

Mobile view

[tiramisu41]

@uniques_byaa

This thread from last fall may be of interest:  https://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-Selling/Third-party-Photo-Hosting/td-p/27485614

From the screen shots others have posted of your listings it appears that the photos that are supposed to display in the item description of your listing are not because you are no longer paying PhotoBucket $400 or so for hosting services.  This change occurred in their subscription plans last year.

If you are still paying PhotoBucket to host your images (and paying the new rate), then you need to get in touch with them to figure out why your images are not being displayed properly though from what I understand PhotoBucket Customer/Technical Support isn't always that responsive.

In the above thread, you'll notice a lot of other sellers have migrated away from third-party photo hosting services like PhotoBucket and are hosting their own photos on their own sites for about a third the cost.  Might be something worth considering...

Hoe this helps.

[shipscript]

@uniques_byaa

I looked at the code for your store, and this is the only keyword eBay is using.

<meta name="keywords" content="Moi Art Jewelry">

Additionally, your new keywords are not correctly configured. The same words should not be duplicated within other keyword phrases.

         Primary:

1. Moi Art Jewelry
2. Unique Mens Ring
   Secondary:
3. Handmade Men Rings
4. Men's Gemstone Rings
5. Mens Turquoise Rings
6. Aqeeq Ring
7. Mens Onyx Ring

Below are some very old eBay pages about store keywords:

http://pages.ebay.com/education/SEO-introduction/index.html

http://pages.ebay.com/help/stores/contextual/keyword-suggestions.html

And this page is interesting and not as old as the above pages

https://www.scavengerlife.com/2015/04/how-to-fix-your-ebay-search-engine/

It appears that the first two primary keywords should be the basis of what you sell, so "ring" might be first and "men" might be next. Then the secondary keywords would be turquoise, onyx, 925 silver, handmade, and words like that.

Additionally, there has been a lot of pressure from buyers to be able to exclude internationally shipped products from search, although they are mostly trying to avoid wading through items that come from china that deliver in 30 to 45 days.

Description Template

The next big problem, that others have noted, is that your listings are loaded with those Photobucket warnings. I heartily recommend that you solve that problem as quickly as possible. I realize that you have thousands of listings and revision will be difficult, but it is possible to automate that process.

For instance, take a look at the Sandbox tool, where I have preloaded one of your listings with several filters that both strip out the old content and patch it up a bit so it will work on mobile. When the page opens, scroll down and open the "filtered" tab. Then click the "Preview" button on that tab to see the stripped down and mobile-friendly version of your listing.

If all of your listings are similar, then the same filters could be used to bulk edit all of your listings and make the revisions through eBay's File Exchange. 

This is just a patch, and is not as clean as starting new listings with a clean template, but it would get rid of the ugly warning photos and would tighten up some of the messy spacing left by empty photo placeholders.

[shipscript]

@uniques_byaa

The Sandbox link I provided above was incomplete. Here is the correct link to the Sandbox revision

[dougsue123b]

I know that a lot of people have been burned buying "925 Sterling silver" from overseas.

They would get silver plate and a resin stone. My wife bought a bunch of it. But she knew what it was.

That could be a reason for lost U.S. sales.

[abfabvintage]

@shipscript

Hello, SS: I, too, have a Store since 2014 with a problem re: search engine keywords.  I have had the same keywords for each of my 50 categories ever since I created the store so I have never had to check the "innards" of my store as they fundamentally would never change.

Believe I have the same scenario as previous poster's first screen shot: I just noticed that all my current listing titles are in every one of my category key word slots per category. I didn't change or revise them, and it was never like that before. For example, for my Glassware category, I originally had the maker names like Fostoria, Libby, etc. along with type of glass, all in a run-on list, etc. That is all now gone. I have 50 categories set up but every one of them for keywords now show the title of my current listings that have nothing to do with the category. I hope I am explaining this correctly. My current listing titles are in all 50 of my categories?.

I am prone to just leave it as is as my current and some sold items do show up within google search and other search engines (like marketplace pulse) for abfabvintage.com. So I don't need that to get screwed up if I make any store keyword changes. My question, can I just leave it alone? I do get views and some watchers on all of my current listings so I don't have that problem and my live descriptions, photos, and mobile are fine. 

Is there some place within forums specifically related to Stores where someone like me who isn't so saavy with making revisions can go for advice? I know ebay was starting to upgrade stores but I thought they were supposed to notify people first? Sorry rambling. Just trying to make sense of it all since I didn't make any changes. And I plan to downgrade from Basic to Starter come May 1 so want to make sure it all flows without any glitches. Thanks for your help. I tried to screenshot, the Store page in question, but didn't work.

[portersewing_43]

We're pretty new to stores, so I don't know how long it has been this way, but the Search Engine Keywords tool is defunct (doesn't do anything). Like many others, we noticed right off the bat that the keyword blocks were full of listing titles and words irrelevant to the actual categories. We changed some, made some all blank and left some at the default just to see how they would effect the pages. A month later, checking page source of any of our store pages (and of anyone else's) it appeared that all meta tags are generated from your store name and description. Did some editing of both keywords and store description, checked a month later and we were right. Meta tags for All store pages, category pages, and store search results are generated using your store name and description. Forget about the edit keywords page and focus on these two elements.
As for individual listing pages, we have noticed that the AI creates a description tag based on the contents in your item description box, and not necessarily from the first 200 words or 200 characters. Nor does it necessarily take information in the order you type it. The AI actually does a decent job of creating the meta tag based on the full content of your listing.
However, there are no meta keywords generated for items. Some people say that meta keywords are irrelevant and others do not, but items without them do still show up in google searches. We have not tried to push meta keywords through html editor in item description, or even looked to see if it is allowed. We just stay focused on relevant content and allow the AI to do the rest.

[shipscript]

@abfabvintage

Since you are already using the new billboard store format, your store will automatically migrate to the newer store format in May without your input. Sellers with the simple version of the old legacy store will also migrate in May without additional notice. Stores with a custom storefront or with custom pages will be skipped in May and will be asked to switch at the end of summer, when more features are added to the new store format. Those store owners will then have until early 2019 to complete their own conversion to the new format.

Looking at your page code, eBay shows this as your keywords

<meta name="keywords" content="abfabvintage">

...and shows this as your page description (notice where it truncates)

<meta name="description" content="Welcome to my AbFabVintage eBay Store. We offer vintage items such as clothing, shoes, pottery, decorative and antique collectibles including fine jew" />

When I switched to a category on your store and again looked at the source, the above remained unchanged.

Since you are happy with the performance of your store, I wouldn't bother changing anything at this point. Wait until after the store converts and address the issue then.  There may be some topics started when the May conversion begins and that would be the time to ask staff about the best way to use keywords in the new store format.

[shipscript]

@portersewing_43

Thank you for that review. Let's see what they have in place when they roll out the new store design in May. If they open a topic, please be sure to post to it.

---

@portersewing_43 wrote:
As for individual listing pages, we have noticed that the AI creates a description tag based on the contents in your item description box, and not necessarily from the first 200 words or 200 characters. Nor does it necessarily take information in the order you type it. The AI actually does a decent job of creating the meta tag based on the full content of your listing.

---

That particular description meta tag contains the mobile summary that will also display on mobile devices and that will be shared with other shopping venues. You can directly affect what appears there by using eBay' mobile summary tags within your description HTML.

<div vocab="https://schema.org/" typeof="Product">
<span property="description">
...mobile summary text without any HTML...
</span></div> 

If the summary tags are not used, the bots will attempt to extract phrases that contain popular search words, or that contain reused words, and seem to purposely exclude a duplication of the item title.  I always find the bots pulling in shipping terms.  The summary is extracted within the first few minutes after a revision, so I have learned to give it a minute or two before checking for it on a mobile device.

[abfabvintage]

@portersewing_43

@shipscript

Thank you both for your very helpful replies. Since I have no clue about HTML or how to revamp the store, will just wait until Stores are converted and maybe learn how & what to do.

For SS: Thanks for looking at my store:

1. You indicated my store is a billboard format and it is not the "old" front and will just be integrated without my input. BUT I have my abfabvintage banner? Wouldn't I fall into the second or even 3rd level for upgrades since I have the colorful banner?

2. When I downgrade from Basic to Starter in May, I assume my current store banner/front will stay the same except that I will be paying less store fees and not changing anything else unless I need to address the keyword problem.

3. You mentioned "if I am happy with my store performance..." I just assume it is working ? in searches and where ever else it needs to be.  All I do know if I access just my plain old "see other items" versus the Store, the Store has no https verified yet the "see other items" does. Have no clue why both are not the same.

Again, thanks for taking your time on this Sunday afternoon. Appreciate it.