eBay has announced after careful consideration, they are leaving their links policy as is. That is good news. On May 19, 2008, eBay announced a change to their links policy. This change would have required sellers to remove nearly every outbound link from any seller-created page, including listing pages, and About Me pages. Now, we'll pretend the whole thing was a big mistake. We sellers can keep our links. But just imagine the number of hours already spent, changing listings "just in case" eBay went ahead with the new "no links" decision.
Hours have been lost changing listings, and griping on discussion boards that could have been spent productively by sellers this summer. For some sellers, the new links policy was the last straw - and they left.
There is no question that the earlier announcement was carefully considered. So this decision to leave the policy as is screams to be scrutinized. Is eBay feeling the heat of disgruntled sellers? Has the internal communication broken down so one hand doesn't know what the other is doing? eBay doesn't reverse many decisions, so something out of the norm seems to be happening.
The bottom line is - even though we can keep links in our About Me pages and even some in our listings - this was sloppy and hurt eBay sellers and eBay as a company. What a shame.
Jerkin' Back and Forth
Take a look at the lyrics and video from this 1981 song by Devo - does this fit with the eBay we know today? If I had to sing a song to eBay, here's how it would go...
Jerkin' Back and Forth Lyrics
I know I let you tell me what to do
You were confident you knew best
Now things arent working like you want them to
Your confidence is what I detest
You got me lookin up high
You got me searchin down low
You got me I know you know
You got me jerkin back n forth
You told me people like to suffer
You told me thats the way it is
You said that things were getting better
You said I should expect all this
You think its funny
But what I say is true
The reason that I live like this
Is all because of you
There is a thought that keeps me thinking
Like a stone inside my shoe
It is a vision reoccurring
A dirty window I can see you through
You can read the official announcement here.
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