Ebay Is Saying Google SEO Changes Are Hurting Their Business And Profits

By Nazar Bryant


Whenever someone tries to game the system, specifically in regard to Google and their search engine, the winner is almost always Google. This is true in regard to the latest news regarding eBay and how it fell short of quarterly earnings in the second quarter. Despite making almost $4.4 billion, which was expected, Google plans to maintain specific algorithm changes that will affect eBay and its current SEO business practices. It could simply be that pages on eBay are very thin, thus meriting a lower ranking in the search, but nothing has been definitively said.



When it comes to SEO the people at Google change the way they rank pages quite a bit. This is due to the fact that there are those that try to game the system by taking advantage of the rules when they are found out. Generally the rules out there aren't shown to anyone because if they were to be, people would just start taking advantage of them and it would be impossible for Google to rank their pages correctly.

As a result, eBay has decided to reengage existing clientele, as well as bring in new customers, using strategies including coupon in, increased market spending and advertising, and providing more seller incentives. The problem seems to be solely based upon tactics that are not allowed by Google, which forced them to penalize eBay in some way. Hopefully these changes will take effect quickly as third-quarter earnings need to be higher to compensate for the previous quarter.

Once you have a good look at what Google does to SEO and how it harms businesses like eBay, you can really start to see that it's a legitimate concern. Hopefully Google will learn to start working at this and stop hurting people in the process. In the quest to stop people from abusing the system, it's starting to hurt those that don't.

Second-quarter earnings were supposed to be $4.37 billion which is a sizable chunk of change, but it was shy several million dollars of the expected goal. Is it possible that Google actually penalized them specifically, targeting all of eBay's pages that are listed on Google?

Although eBay has stated that it will advertise more with Google, it has never said that Google Adwords was a viable form of generating revenue. In fact, it is blatantly stated that it doesn't work, especially for the name brand products that are offered on the online auction giant. This should prove to be interesting over the next few months as Google and eBay hash things out. With quarterly earnings down, they will have to make a significant comeback to balance their books. We shall see what happens the third quarter of 2014.




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