eBay UK - Search Engine Tips (Prevent Visibility Holds)
Hello,
(Info based on eBay UK only)
You've made a good listing, great even. You can't wait to start receiving views, watchers and even buyers. But there's one problem... you've noticed that your listing hasn't appeared on search results, and is even missing from your 'Items for Sale' list.
This isn't an error unfortunately. For newer sellers, eBay periodically (and almost always at first) intentionally delay a listing's visibility on the marketplace for a period of 7-12 hours. Once your listing has finally gone live, you still aren't in the clear. When you revise your listing before 24 hours since it was created, the system will re-remove your visibility until a further 6-12 hours has passed again.
It was popular belief that the delay was due to indexing or the databases updating, but their modern marketplace is built for purpose - it takes less than 5 minutes for listing metadata to be made public, so any delay is a deliberate automated function.
Tough luck for new sellers? Not always. Here's some helpful tips to avoid your listing being withheld from visibility on the marketplace: - Avoid options that incur listing fees such as; a subtitle, Gallery Plus or an additional category. When using these features, it can be counter-intuitive and can trigger the visibility hold. You're better off waiting until at-least 24 hours has passed before revising your listing and introducing those features.
- Considered charity? Using PayPal's 'Giving Fund' in your listing comes with a few benefits, including a little more visibility and increasing eBay's fondness of your new relationship with them. Since PayPal is now a requirement with all UK listings, there's never been a better time to do it.
- Your account's standing. Whilst there's plenty on that in the wonderful Stealth Book, the more 'Green' you are with eBay, the less compelled their systems are to throttle your selling activities, which includes visibility holds. If you've opened a new eBay account with a bad start, expect 24 hour visibility holds for a few months until you've proved your worthiness.
- Your listing's metadata. If you've gone flank with your listing, and raise the alarm of a digital / high-risk / VeRo item, kiss goodbye to your visibility for the first 12-24 hours. Your title, subtitle and item description are usually filtered upon your listing going live. Within the first 5 minutes, when your listing is being transferred to the wild, its make or break for your instant visibility.
These are quite basic but effective pointers and as with anything on eBay, tons of factors can impact your account's capabilities and selling output. It's recommended that you read the Stealth Book when creating your eBay account to reap the best quality possible for things like search visibility and the selling experience as a whole.
If you're not bothered about waiting 24 hours for your sales to start coming in, that's great news. But if you'd like to see some action fast, the above can help you on your travels.
Thanks for reading and stay safe out there!
Last edited by JHerald; 04-15-2017 at 04:23 PM.
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