Views and Bots and Traffic and Bots

[qualityrelics]

Dear eBay,  first off I want to say ‘I love you, but I’m not IN love with you’

I SO SO miss the days when I would list an item and I’d get an IMMEDIATE view.
Was it an eBay associate quality check? Was it an eBay algorithm bot check?

Or was it a 3rd Party bot from the great beyond??!?

Franky, I DO NOT CARE.
All I know was this…..prior to these view and bot changes I was getting traffic and sales. 

Is it a rough time if the year to sell?  Sure, but going from multiple daily sales to barely scraping by is NOT working.  

And I am listing my BUTT off with no noticeable returns on my efforts and this is unlike 5 years of full time selling history. 
eBay, listen, you have done something on the technical side that has hurt sales.  Period.  It’s painfully obvious to me and thousands of other sellers. 
Please reverse these recent changes to your algorithms so my partnership with eBay can continue.

I don’t know Bots.  I don’t dislike or like bots. All I know is bots brought views and views increased my visibly and that brought sales.  
None of that is happening now.  
If you allow sellers to use 3rd party listing services then why in the HECK does a 3rd party bot view matter!!!!  It doesn’t matter. 
I DO NOT CARE if my views are “organic” or a bot.  
I want to sell things to make make money for me and for you.   Please fix this. 

[pburn]

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@qualityrelics wrote:

All I know is bots brought views and views increased my visibly and that brought sales.  

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The bots are still viewing your listings at the same rate of occurrence as in the past. You just aren't being shown a count of them, so, in regard to whether the bots are bringing views, there has been no change. Apparently, humans are not viewing your listings, and it's possible they weren't viewing them very often before. 

Hopefully, things will turn around for you! Good luck!

[mtgraves7984]

The first view was a bot view. I don't miss that one at all.

[hartungcards]

How on Earth did it help you run your business when you had 87 views of your item, but didn't know that only 3 of them were from actual potential customers?

[qualityrelics]

It's easy to respond to a post without really reading it and comprehending it.

It's so common the get a response like this where someone dismisses a post in an effort to discount the credibility of the poster.

I have been selling full time for 5 years with steady and predicable traffic, views, and sales.

This is called a pattern.....A pattern based on 5 years, 60 months, 1,825 days of selling.

Based on this pattern the current version of ebay is behaving very differently than than is has previously.

So I was previously seeing consistent sales it would be reasonable that I was receiving consistent views.

My sales and views are down more significantly than they have ever been since these platform changes went into effect.

I'm still listing desirable items, with exceptional photos, full item details, and using Promoted Listings with Best Offer.

If I'm performing consistently excellent and there is a drastic drop in views then I would speculate eBay has made some platform changes that are impacting my online sales.

Plus, I'm not the only seller who has concerns about these changes.

[qualityrelics]

My response would be that I have a plus 90% + conversion rate on items I list within 3 months.  I also know views improve an item's visibility in ebay's search algorithm, regardless of the origin of the view.  Like I said there are dozens upon dozens of 3rd party listing services and selling Marketplaces systemically linked to ebay that neither you or I can confidently say bots are meaningless.

I know my sales numbers though....and since the new changes my numbers are very different.

[qualityrelics]

That immediate view made me feel warm and fuzzy

[hartungcards]

Yes, I'm sure the reason your "sales numbers are very different" is because a bunch of bots aren't artificially inflating your total item views.

[simply-the-best-for-you]

As others have said, the bots are still there, doing what they've always done.  The only difference is that those views are not counted anymore, since they were not ever potential real customers.  

What else has changed?  Well, it's now the middle of the Summer doldrums & prices have gone up astronomically for gas, rent, food, etc.  

I get that the bot views made you feel warm & fuzzy, but it was a false sense of security.  

[agun2355]

I don't think this new way of counting views is at all accurate. I had a week old item with 1 view and 4 watchers. How does that happen? In general I have too many items where almost every view is a watcher. I suspect the new view count is less accurate than the old one.

[7606dennis]

You realize that  when posting to these boards you aren't contacting eBay but rather eBay members like yourself.  Right?   

[hartungcards]

One view and four watchers?  How does that happen?  That's an easy one.  You don't have to view an item to watch it.  You just click on the little heart or eyeball on the bulk listings, and presto, you're watching an item you didn't actually view.

[zamo-zuan]

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@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:

As others have said, the bots are still there, doing what they've always done.  The only difference is that those views are not counted anymore, since they were not ever potential real customers.  

What else has changed?  Well, it's now the middle of the Summer doldrums & prices have gone up astronomically for gas, rent, food, etc.  

I get that the bot views made you feel warm & fuzzy, but it was a false sense of security.  

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EBay can't even get their organic counts right with 3 different counts on the SAME traffic page.

Do you really trust them to properly count which views are bots or not?

[donsdetour]

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@qualityrelics wrote:

Dear eBay,  first off I want to say ‘I love you, but I’m not IN love with you’

I SO SO miss the days when I would list an item and I’d get an IMMEDIATE view.
Was it an eBay associate quality check? Was it an eBay algorithm bot check?

Or was it a 3rd Party bot from the great beyond??!?

Franky, I DO NOT CARE.
All I know was this…..prior to these view and bot changes I was getting traffic and sales. 

Is it a rough time if the year to sell?  Sure, but going from multiple daily sales to barely scraping by is NOT working.  

And I am listing my BUTT off with no noticeable returns on my efforts and this is unlike 5 years of full time selling history. 
eBay, listen, you have done something on the technical side that has hurt sales.  Period.  It’s painfully obvious to me and thousands of other sellers. 
Please reverse these recent changes to your algorithms so my partnership with eBay can continue.

I don’t know Bots.  I don’t dislike or like bots. All I know is bots brought views and views increased my visibly and that brought sales.  
None of that is happening now.  
If you allow sellers to use 3rd party listing services then why in the HECK does a 3rd party bot view matter!!!!  It doesn’t matter. 
I DO NOT CARE if my views are “organic” or a bot.  
I want to sell things to make make money for me and for you.   Please fix this. 

---

Well it would be nice for folks to sell now days, see a lot of posts about that problem.

As for the rest I am laughing. Fun read.

[inhawaii]

The old way:

127 views reported. 121 were bots. 6 were real people.

The new way:

6 views reported. 6 were real people. 

If you think  the old way helped increase your sales, so be it.