Link within my listing was removed by eBay…anyone know why?

[GeorgiaHillbilly]

I’m listing some vintage postcards and I included a link to another site that gives the history on the photographer.

eBay removed those links.

Any idea why?

[Mighty Brilliant]

Adding links to listings can be hit or miss. Generally they are OK if it is simply providing more information on an item which can’t be included in the listing. If the site you are linking to also sells similar postcards by the photographer, that would be grounds for removal. If you used a URL shortener, that would get you as well.

[Sharyn]

I thought that eBay doesn’t allow links to outside websites any more. They started that more than a year ago.

You can still have a link to a YouTube video showing the operation of the unit. There is a way to imbed them.

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

Sharyn has it. Years ago lots of links came from or went to “link Frams” in order to catch Googles eye and get ranked by Google. All those links caused Google to cause a bunch of trouble for Ebay, who was also using the tatic.

So as Sharyn says, Ebay started going to “structured data” i.e. the Item Specifics area and having sellers put pertinent information in those fields, which Google will safely search and no links can go into the IS fields. Then Sellers started to skinny down the description area as a result. Now a lot of sellers put very little in the description area. Much more than 250 characrters is not going to do you much good any way.

It is suggested you put only information that is specific to describing your item in more detail than is allowed in the title area and that is about it.

I have seen as few as 2 or 3 words now in the description area, including some of Jay and ryanne’s listings [guess Ryanne has trained their listing helpers to be short and specific also].

So if you are using the descriptioon area for a lot of Wikipedia background information in order to provide a historical perspective on your item, that is probably a waste of time and space anyway. But if you must, then do nothing more than name the location to send the viewer too, not type it as a URL address which will change to a link.

69% of our buyers are now buying from their cell phones. That 250 character limit is about all that they will see any way and most buyers now seem to just see the picture, look at the price and click to buy. But that is just my opinion.

Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta

[Jay]

Agree with everyone above. Here’s the specific eBay rule:
https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-policies/links-policy?id=4248

“To protect our members, with limited exceptions, we don’t allow listings or products to contain links that direct customers to a site other than eBay, even if the link is not clickable.”

[Antique Frog]

If I add info I’ve gleaned from somewhere else I add the author’s name. One of my listings got critiqued by the editor of a specialist collectors’ periodical (who makes a habit of filling his copy with such stuff). He got a namecheck in my next listing, just to see if he’d mention the mention of him in his next issue. Didn’t work.

[Mighty Brilliant]

Wow, thanks for the info. The actual ebay policy does basically say no links, but all the articles I read on the subject, including ones updated this year, seem to contradict the policy. Sorry to have passed on bad info.

I do embed YouTube videos I make showing electronics working. Thankfully these are still allowed. I think it is a very useful value add for the customer so they can see exactly what they are getting and how it operates. I also link to the eBay listing in my video description with the eBay partner network link so if anyone finds the video on YouTube and then buys the product, I’ll get extra credit for the link.

[Inglewood]

I’m surprised eBay doesn’t allow videos to be uploaded to their servers just like any photo. Would make more sense for them to host them instead of a 3rd party like YouTube.

It would save me a lot of hassle – I rarely do a video, but they are valuable when you have something odd that you want to show working, moving, a defect, or how to assemble and a photo won’t give it the proper presentation.

I also wonder if it would be quicker to video something from multiple angles then take multiple photos…how Steve shows his sales in his “What Sold” videos is a good example of a good way eBay could implement videos – it also makes it feel more personal on some items to hear someone describe an item instead of quick text blurbs.

[Mighty Brilliant]

It would be nice if eBay allowed direct video uploading, but I understand why they don’t. The increase in storage and bandwidth would be huge…and expensive.
It’s easy enough to embed a video using a site like https://www.flippertools.com/ebayYoutube/embed-youtube-videos-in-ebay-listings.htm
It adds all the markup required so you can just copy and paste into the HTML version of your listing description.

[Inglewood]

Thanks for the link! This is actually very helpful…my 1995 HTML coding skills are slowly becoming more useless by the day, and I can free up some space in my brain now and avoid the coding struggle for imbedding a video file.

Might as well erase the all the C=64 Basic programming skills from my brain while I’m at it ,8 ,1

[Mighty Brilliant]

No problem! I’m pretty fluent in general HTML and CSS, with a little bit of PHP that I picked up working on WordPress sites, but a time saver is a time saver.

[Author]

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