Earlier today I read a blog post regarding blog content, including IDs, being accessible via a Google search. That blog has now been deleted. It's a shame, because it had some good information. So, I'm going out on a limb here to repeat some of it.

EBay makes blogs available to its members at no cost. It's easy to get started with a blog. It's so easy, in fact, that some folks start a blog, which is supposed to be a collection of posts over time, just to complain about a single transaction. If you've spent any time at all browsing blogs, you know that quite often there is a great deal of personal information shared in the posts. And, often when buyers or sellers are upset, they air the dirty laundry, so to speak, of an unhappy transaction in the blogs, in public, for all to see.

The post this morning was by a person who thought eBay was selling member information because he/she (I honestly didn't notice; I do not remember who posted this, so I'm going to use the masculine) found himself in Google by putting in his ID and doing a search. When his blog posts came up, he jumped to the conclusion that eBay has sold his info. This is not so. Do you know why eBay added blogs? Well, I'm not earning the big bucks for internet marketing, but blogging is the "IN" thing right now to draw traffic! It's a crafty thing on eBay's part to provide this free service to its members. Yes, the blogs do provide a way for members to ask one another questions and get help (the BEST thing about the blogs!), but they also serve to draw traffic to listings. If you are new to eBay you cannot realize just how much more traffic listings are now receiving because of the fine tuning eBay has done on its internal software, but also because of the avenues eBay is exploiting off site. Among them is Google, and other search engines. Google bots spider all eBay websites. This is GOOD for you! Go to Google and type in a few keywords of YOUR listing and see what comes up. I'll bet some eBay listings appear, even if they are not yours. This is why using good keywords is so important! Many sellers spend so much time on fancy templates and mind-blowing graphics. They are simply not as important as using good keywords in your titles and writing good, complete descriptions with keywords well employed.

Also notice when you're at Google doing a keyword search that on the right hand side, you'll probably see a text ad with a link to eBay. Sometimes they make no sense and are laughable, but that's okay. Most of the time they are relevant and a click of the link will COST eBay some money to bring a prospective buyer to YOUR listings. EBay is spending money to advertise your listings. Please remember this when you complain about fees. If you've not done business anywhere else but eBay, you cannot appreciate the cost of advertising, the cost of website traffic, the difficulty in getting buyers to your wares.

We aren't listing right at the moment, but did earlier this year after about a year off for a cross-country move. Our listings for three months before the move were to sell items we did not want to move. But before that, we listed stamps pretty much like the listings we offered earlier this year. We were absolutely amazed at how much more traffic our postings were getting. Our stamps are pretty much the same. Yes, perhaps more stamp collectors are online now, but I believe the real difference in our auction traffic and increased sales percentage was all the improvements eBay has made in the interim, and all the external efforts eBay is employing to draw traffic to eBay sites. They don't own Google. Now, I don't pretend to be privy to corp-to-corp agreements, but it appears to me that eBay is buying ad space like any other advertiser. I "don't like" eBay fees any more than other sellers, but I do have a bit of understanding what those fees are paying for. Yes, eBay is making a profit. They should be. They are in business. And just like Wal-Mart, they are the best at what they do.

I've read blog posts where unhappy sellers are "leaving eBay" and going to other auction sites. I'm not saying that they won't be successful, and that someday other websites may offer sellers a better, less expensive opportunity to sell and make money, but right now, across the board (not a specialty market), eBay probably offers sellers the most exposure for the smallest cost. If they didn't have something "wonderful" to offer, would you find big retailers here? No. They're not doing eBay because they have nothing else to do; they list on eBay because eBay works. Now, I realize that that in itself is a touchy subject for ordinary people trying to make some money from home, as we are. But if you create your listings right, use the tools available to you, use good business sense, then your listings can be right up there along side the "big guys," and where else could THAT happen?

I wandered from the original purpose of this post.

Which was, please remember that these blogs posts are public, just like your listings. Please remember that search engines are crawling these blog pages, looking for keywords. Type is type. The software doesn't have a sense of humor, doesn't know you're upset and will get over it tomorrow, doesn't recognize a string of alpha-numeric characters as your ID. If it's in here, it may very well be "in there," meaning, yes, you can do a search in Google on your ID and it will probably pull up most if not all of your posts. This was surprising to me when I discovered it, but luckily I discovered early on that what I type here might just be read by someone on Google.

So watch what you say and how you say it! If you don't want it on the front page of a national newspaper, you might not want it here.

And, in parting, here's a recent post in an eBay blog about "Being Nice." Take a look; it might just be something responsible sellers will want to consider.

http://www.ebaychatter.com/the_chatter/2007/08/promoting-respe.html

Can someone direct me to whereever it is on eBay that one can research recent sales in a certain category. I'm wandering around like a blind man trying to find some way to get an idea of the percentage of listings in a certain category that results in sales.

Thanks.