eBay Warning to Remove Contact Info From Listings??

One place to check is if you use any type of third party listing tools like SixBit, Auctiva, InkFrog, Wonder Lister and the old Turbo Lister. Most of these programs insert a small logo [advertising] at the bottom of the listing that you used to create your listing or a template you used. Those logos had a link back to their web sites to try to intice new subscribers. Ebay’s “Active Content Tool” is finding those logos and seeing the back links and then putting those listings on their “you need to remove active content” lists. Also if you did any copy and paste information from other sites outside Ebay, such as Wikipedia, or some specailty site with info about your product, those too contain back links.

In our case we use WonderLister and WL just recently released a new revision that stripped out all of the WL logos in all of our listings. We went from approx. 750 warnings, down to about 6. Then I find those pretty easy by opening my descriptions on those. Also if you know any HTML you can look in the code and find some links.

Also you will have to scan and see if you have any links to a photo that is outside of Ebay. Such as a link to Photobucket, Imgur, and the such. Those too need to be removed.

Now the next item about to pop up on the scene for this fall, is the non-secure data that you may have copied from sites that is not secure. The old code HTML is now not going to be allowed inside of your descriptions and it all needs to be HTMLS [the new secure coding for all data]. This means if you copied and pasted description information in order to beef up your listings content, that data will most likely be flagged as insecure.

If you use Google Chrome as a browser and any of your customers use Google Chrome [which about 50% of the user do], then Google is going to place a pop up warning that your site listing contains unsecure data. That will kill a bunch of sales for you.

Here is a tool Ebay has partnered with to allow you to run a scan on your store and see if you have any old HTML code and if so will be classified to your customers as an unsecure site if they are using Chrome.
Here is the entire message we got along with the links. Link to i-tool: i-ways tool.

If this doesn’t link, then just search for the topic of unsecure Ebay content using Chrome and other browsers.

Good luck on getting things cleaned up.

Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta

This is the email we got couple of days ago: >>>
Starting in October 2017, Google Chrome—the browser used by almost half of all eBay buyers—will begin displaying the message “Not Secure” in the address bar when users visit standard HTTP pages or HTTPS pages that include non-secure HTTP content.

You have listings that contain non-secure HTTP content, and we encourage you to revise this content in your listings immediately. If you’re not sure which of your listings contain HTTP content, you can use the i-ways tool to identify them. We have partnered with i-ways to implement an eBay sign-in that protects your full inventory from being available publicly.

What is eBay doing to help?
We believe that the “Not Secure” message may deter buyers from purchasing and impact your conversion rate. To prevent the “Not Secure” message from appearing, we’re changing the desktop buying experience starting this October. Listings that contain or link to HTTP content after that time will have one-click item descriptions—a snippet of the description will be visible, and buyers will have to click to see the full description. The mobile experience will remain unchanged.

If you prefer for the full item description to display in your listings, we recommend that you update your HTTP content before October.

Updating listings with HTTP content
Please reference the HTTP page within Seller Center for detailed guidance on how to update your listings.

Additionally, eBay has been working with third-party providers to ensure they’re ready for this change. Many of them will provide bulk editing options to revise the HTTP content in your listings. See a list of providers here.

For more information about the specifics of this Google Chrome change, follow this link.

As always, thank you for selling on eBay.

The eBay Selling Team

I have had the same message and problem since Monday. On Monday I had two that said I had contact info in listing and now it is up to 120+.(2000+ in my store) The first rep that I talked to said he didn’t see any contact info in the listing. I knew there was no info before I called. When the count got up to 80+ I called again. A different rep told me it was the link to my listing service site. I list with Seller Sourcebook and they have a link at the bottom of the listing. That was the problem.(That’s not the problem) I fixed a few that I had time to fix but I keep getting more. All of my listing were created in SSB so I guess they are just filtering through them and I will eventually have a bunch more if not all of my listings.
The bad news is that there is no bulk fix. Each listing will have to be done one at a time. I’m still working on active content (I know..I know I need to get it done, I’m working on it). But the good news is that you can do them both at the same time.
In the seller hub go to the contact list, number highlighted in red.
Choose a listing, choose edit.
Scroll down to item listing information
On right side go to NEW Mobile-Friendly Checker, click
Choose Item Description Checker, you should see a red highlighted message “we found non-compliant links”. At the bottom you will see what the link is that needs to be fixed.
Click on update and you will see the corrected link. My link to correct is the “see my other items link”.
Click on update and you will see the corrected update.
Save!! One done.
The bad news is that you have to correct each one individually.
I just about cried when the rep told me that there was no bulk fix. I simply don’t have time to do all these fixes, list everything I need to list, get more ready to list, and take care of my husband and everything that has to be done at home. There just isn’t enough time in a day to do it all. I need the ebay income so I just keep trying to get something done when I can.
I’m so mad at ebay right now because if we have to fix all of these things they should have a way to bulk fix them.

So Mike you are saying that I now have more to worry about with the non-secure info? I don’t paste and copy anything in my listing. I’m old fashioned and do my own listings and don’t copy other listings. I might look at other listing but I don’t steal their content, yes I think it’s stealing when you take someone’s listing content, photos or anything else in their listing.
I can only hope that http content from SSB will not be affected.

i just got this message too. it says i have contact info in my listings, but the listings in their list just all have links to places like Wikipedia. i thought we were allowed to link to places as long as they were https links. i might just remove the links so they dont get blocked/ended? that’s annoying.

i’m wrong. you can’t link to outside sites other than youtube or freight services. didn’t know that. i’m going to remove my Wikipedia links then!

http://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/seller-updates/2017summer/listing-policy-updates.html#m17-1-tb1

In my description, I encourage buyers to use the shopping cart and visit my store. I originally thought that the link I created internally in Ebay as a custom insert is requiring the mobile friendly checker / fixer. However, now I realize that I have also inadvertently copied in links while preparing my listings using outside sources for research. They have just started flagging the latter and putting in my Hub with a request to “remove contact info”. I’m thinking I’ll probably have to run the checker on all of my listings. There’s one benefit of having a small store I suppose.