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eBay Kills Keywords Program

magienoiremagienoireMember
August 2006


***eBay Keywords Program Being Discontinued***

August 23, 2006 | 01:00PM PST/PT


eBay will be discontinuing the eBay Keywords program at the end of September. The program, which allowed eBay sellers to bid for keywords for text ad placements, will be phased out as follows:

The week of September 5th, existing eBay Keywords text box ad placements will be removed from search results pages. eBay Keywords customers will still have access to larger graphical ad placements through the end of the month.
On September 30th the program will close. (No ad placement inventory will be available for the eBay Keywords program.)
"The eBay Keywords program has been used by a very small percentage of eBay members since its launch in 2003. Sellers who have participated in the eBay Keywords program will receive an email with more information about the closing of the eBay Keywords program."

Hmmmm, talk about being transparent. First they jack up store fees to force their hand concerning 'auction style' listings. Then they take away their keyword program. Gee, that makes sense (if you're eBay, that is). I use to run a Featured Store. Using the keywords DID drive traffic to my listings. It DID work. I downgraded to a regular store because I wasn't consistently listing to justify a Featured Store. My best guess is this, they've 'partnered' with Yahoo, wait and see the keyword / search deal they toss out to eBayers later on. I'm sure more money for them! Lol, have they no shame? Methinks not!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Some people should be content watching the grass grow. Instead of committing felonies.
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A auctivajeffAuctiva CEO
No big loss. It was horrible. We tried it a few times. Millions of impressions, but very few clicks. I think we would have just as many clicks if the ad was invisible. I've seen some people say things like 75 clicks in 10 million impressions when they ran it. That's an incredibly low click through rate.

The bad part to all of this is that they'll probably replace it with ads they sell themselves and they wont be as friendly towards linking to eBay items like they do now.
magienoiremagienoireMember
True. Poorly chosen keywords don't get very many hits. That's what happended to me when I first began using them. However, I learned to use them as they should be used and the results were great. For instance, instead of 'skirt suit' I learned that wool/silk skirt suit size whatever was best. Or Ann Taylor wool skirt suit size whatever. I didn't realize wool and silk were huge keywords. Maybe you all knew this, but I didn't. Words like gorgeous, beautiful and all of that are a big waste of space. Anyway, the right combo works.
A angellisaMember
So they're out to lose more money, do they have **** for brains or what. The keywords is the only benifit for having a featured store. So why would all those people pay 50 bucks a month now? Answer they won't, they will either close or go basic.

I did read a post on the store board from someone that said they are replacing it with someone else, that they were part of a group to research it or something.

Either way, As I said almost a year ago Ebay is going to go belly up. They want to be a NEW item venue and it will never happen, when I think ebay I think used and vintage items as I think the majority of the world does. Screwing over the store owners was the worst possible move they could of made. They want to sell New items then they need to make Express totally Separate and just for brand new items and leave ebay the way it was prior to all the bs, that way then people can choose which site to sell on. JMHO Smile
F fairyoddmotherMember
SmileI was most unhappy about hearing of the close of the Keyword Program. It worked very well for me, too. Actually, I think it was the method that drove more traffic to my site than anything else I tried. I had to email Keywords, and basically they told me it was not ending, just to redistribute the ads beyond EBay.That sounds really good to me. I think I will reserve judgement until I see what happens. Maybe, just maybe it will be better, helpless optomist that I am.

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