Listing not appearing in web search

[egzatek]

Hello,

Just a quick question.

Does having an item listed as "Good till canceled" remove the web search ?

Like this item i have for sale : http://www.ebay.ca/itm/221159789743?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1586.l2649

When i search on the web : GOSS URBANITE FOLDER NIPPS #2C88229  only off-the-board relink to e-bay sites appear, not even one true e-bay hit.  Those off-the-board do mostly rebound the searcher to e-bay, which i am not complaining, but when i research something on the web to buy, i will always look for true e-bay links before anything else.

Some of our items will appear on web searches, but most don't.  Before all our items where web-searchable.

Anyone know why ?

Thank you

[mr.elmwood]

No real idea. Just a bunch of WAG, but, are you listing on .ca or .com? I see you are not putting in any USA shipping cost.

You have actual part numbers in your title, so, that should help with a Google search, but it doesn't.

I find this odd.

[egzatek]

I did these on .com

But somehow i know shipping cost to US might not be showing, talked to E-Bay customer support about it and they said I should list on .ca and .com...... yeah and pay twice the insertion fees, i think not.  But so far i no real complaint about people having to ask me for shipping charges, but i know it doesn't help.

As for the matter of my post, i find that very odd and peculiar and a tad frustrating, as you search anything else on the web and E-bay is always in the tops.

[mr.elmwood]

I have looked at several of your listings and I can't figure it out.

[doglover550]

Hi list on Ebay but I also list on another site where it is made very clear that Google search doesn't like all uppercase titles, or odd characters in the titles. It could be that Google search isn't picking up your items because of the uppercase titles. Change one or two to upper and lower case, wait at least 24 hours and then do another web search and see what happens. If they start showing up then you know what the problem may be.  I'm guessing at least 24 hours but it sometimes takes a few days for items to get into google search.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

For many years it never failed to amazed me that million of people are using Google for search for something when in fact, the Google Engine Search is not exactly a very good engine search.  I almost could never find anything on the Google while I can find on Yahoo Engine search at any time, either on Yahoo.ca or Yahoo.com.

Why not try Yahoo.ca or Yahoo.com to search something instead of relying on Google all the time. 

I am still totally amazed that Google is still in business for all those lousy engine search for years and years.  I guess the people didn't notice the difference or knew better.

[egzatek]

Did the same search on Yahoo.ca and .com and to no avail.  It is not a search engine problem IMO.  So nothing wrong with Google.

As for capital letters or not, all of my listing were searchable when new.

I am really begining to think that good till canceled is the problem.

[pocomocomputing]

Your listing does not have a working USA shipping option. That may be part of the problem.

You list shipping for USA as Expedited Parcel USA.

Is the item small? If so, the most likely cause for no shipping option to show is that the dimensions entered are too small and are under the minimum dimensions.

You can only enter the dimensions once in a listing. You entered them in the Domestic Canada Shipping option Regular Parcel. There is a difference between the minimum dimensions for Canada and USA for Parcel services.

On Canada the minimum is 10 x 7 x 0.1 cm. On USA, Expedited Parcel minimum is 21 x 14 x 0.1 cm.

The eBay listing form has very poor dimension checking so it accepts the smaller dimensions for Canada Regular Parcel but does not warn you that the dimensions are too small for Expedited Parcel USA. So you can create a listing with no issues but the shipping calculator will not work!!

So you will need to enter dimensions that is at least the Expedited Parcel USA minimum of 21 x 14 x 0.1 cm. This will make the listing shipping calculator work for the USA.

Now the actual box that you use to ship the item should be at least the minimum diemsions for Expedited Parcel USA. You probably can get away with a box that is slightly smaller in size but I would not risk it being returned because it does not meet minimum size.

Once you have fixed this problem, your item may now appear in Google search. This may because you made a change to the listing or it may be because you needed the shipping cost to be seen on eBay.com USA which gets the item into Google.

I would also suggest that you stop all CAPS in eBay titles since eBay and Google do not recommend this. It may stop you from higher eBay search placement. It may stop you from being fed into Google search by eBay. No point in risking it since it really makes no difference to you.

[pocomocomputing]

I checked your other lower priced listing and most seem to have no shipping shown to the USA. They all seem to have Expedited Parcel USA as the shipping option and the shipping calculator does not work.

So I suspect you have the wrong minimum dimensions in most of these listings.

I suspect you did not actually measure a box to ship the actual item in and just put in some "standard" box size you use for shipping in all your listings when you created the listings. The first dimension probably was not big enough to meet the minimum of 21 or the second size does not meet the minimum of 14.

You can bulk edit the dimensions to fix the minimum dimension issue. Try revising one or two listings manually and see if that fixed the problem.  If so, bulk edit the rest. test some of the listings at random to see that it is working.

[egzatek]

Hello,

Thank you  for pointing that out, this one was actually 20 x 20 x 10 cm....Just revised item and resaved it and shipping works correctly now.

I do not think that shipping is the issue, for when the listing were created they were visible. 

But thank you for pointing that out, might have to check out if other listing are defect on shipping.

[pocomocomputing]

I do think that your USA sales are slowed by not having the shipping calculator work for the USA. A USA buyer will get a message saying shipping cannot be calculated and not bother to contact you or no message is displayed at all and the buyer might assume it is Free Shipping.

Since more buyers will be searching by eBay search than Google search, you are missing a lot of potential eBay sales needlessly.

While the Google search might be a problem for sales, even if Google search worked, a potential buyer who found it through Google would still have the shipping calculator errors and not buy as mentioned above.

So I would suggest that fixing the shipping calculator problem is a priority for you since I found it in the 5-6 listings I looked at. I suspect it is in many more.

Not having a working shipping option for the USA may reduce search visibility with eBay.com.

PS Another issue that you might run into in February is the new picture policy that eBay is implementing. It was announced last Spring for Fall implementation but was delayed to February.

The new picture policy will not allow text in a picture.  Many of your listing have a graphic with you company name and not the picture of the item.  This might be an issue for you in the near future.

[egzatek]

Hello,

Topic not dead for me,

Just realized i put some new items : Shipping is A Ok to Canada and USA.

Nor Google nor yahoo gives out my item for the search, but does return some other

Searching for : Reliance Electric #86466-59S Rectifier Stack

It doesn't give me my item : http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=221251964695

It really is annoying for personnaly i have do to lots of search for parts, and google/yahoo are my main source to find them.  I know i am not alone, so not having my items come up in a search is a real bummer.

Anyone have any ideas ?

Can i push the problem to E-bay ?

Thank you

[egzatek]

Another thing i just noticed :

If you do for example a search on google :  ebay 121064421083

It will give you 3 hits, including the item on .com and .ca

Now if i search my own item number in the same manner i get nothing at all : ebay 221251964695

Very frustrating

[pierrelebel]

While SOME (not all) eBay listings appear on some search engines from time to time (eBay spends millions of dollars for that), at the end of the day, eBay wants buyers to come and buy on eBay, not looking through search engines.

I do not know how many hundreds of millions eBay would have to spend to have all listings in all search engines.  It would be a mess and would most likely be counter-productive.

Personally, when looking at Google for something, I always add "-eBay" to the search, eliminating eBay listings.  Too many results are irrelevant.  If I want to buy something on eBay, I go to eBay, not a search engine.

Do not worrey about listings on search engines.  It is a nice little bonus but not that essential.  Make sure your listings are attractive and competitive on eBay

Good Luck.

[pierrelebel]

I forgot to add that if eBay were to pay to have all hundreds of millions of listings in all search engines, the cost would result in much higher fees on eBay! Sellers do not want that!

[inuk_the_polar_bear]

I looked and looked and looked. Just like before, I don't get it. Title structure, the use of "#" or "-" does not seem to make a difference.

The ONLY thing that I see different from your listings, and others, is you do not have a gallery picture.

[tobyshitzu]

ebay thinks paying google is a waste of money

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/mar/13/google-keyword-advertising-wastes-money-ebay

Somewhere else recently ebay said over 90% of sales start with a search on ebay, so there isnt much point in worrying what is happenning on google

[egzatek]

I understand that Ebay may think it's a waste of money.

But as a seller : WHY are my competitors items showing up in google and not mine ?

To be fair to every seller, it should be all the listing on websearch or NONE AT ALL.

As i said i am an industrial buyer, and when i need parts i will search the web first thing before searching ebay, for many reasons finding an industrial store is easier to deal with than to buy on e-bay. 

As to the : "Somewhere else recently ebay said over 90% of sales start with a search on ebay, so there isnt much point in worrying what is happenning on google"  yes of course if i am looking for personnal items, ebay is my first search engine.  But in industrial life, i am pretty sure that e-bay is not the prime place to look.

Anyway it is just disapointing to see same item listing on google from other sellers and not mine.

And i'd like to have the answer as to the why some are and some aren't listed on web search.

[egzatek]

---

@pierrelebel wrote:

I forgot to add that if eBay were to pay to have all hundreds of millions of listings in all search engines, the cost would result in much higher fees on eBay! Sellers do not want that!

---

Actually, that might be a good idea.

Have a check box that if you want your item listed on web search it will cost you 1$ (hypothetical number) more to list it on web engines.  They do it for other things, why not this.

That way sellers would have the choice to do it or not.

I for one would pay the extra to list it.

[egzatek]

I think i have found the answer

http://sellerupdate.ebay.co.uk/spring2013/unique-product-identifiers

Seems for a few months now, there need to be more on the listing.

And that just might be it, other listing appearing on google do have manufacturer and part number in the specific place.

Just updated one item with that info and will see how it turns out tomorrow (must give them time to update everything)

Will keep you posted

Have a nice day