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A business owner at WebmasterWorld noticed that he has been getting an increase of sales lately which seems to be predominantly because online auction listings, which were ranked higher in the Google SERPs, are now not as visible. The auction rankings seem to have dropped.
Members speculate that this may have something to do with the recent eBay versus Google advertising campaign gone wrong. Perhaps now this is a Google experiment on relevancy.
Either way, business owners are happy to hear that this is occurring.
That sounds like good news -- much better search results for the end-user, who was often getting expired auction pages. I do see some action like this -- not universal, but still a good tweak.
Those sites have their own marketing plans which shouldn't involve natural search results.
Have any small business owners been noticing any change of rankings (and increased sales/traffic) as a result of this?
[Thanks Ogletree!]
Discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.
Comments:
Brian Mark
06/29/2007 02:14 pm
Our sales have been up, but I can't track it back to auctions being down. All I've noticed is a slight increase in our conversion rate, and we're doing more work on that as I type this.
Tamar Weinberg
06/29/2007 04:07 pm
Brian - keep us informed. I'd be interested in seeing if there's a correlation.
Michael Martinez
07/02/2007 04:04 pm
If we assume for the sake of discussion that auction listings were algorithmically adjusted by Google, it should not be assumed that the eBay/Google media showdown is the reason. Someone complained very firmly about being pushed out of SERPs by auction listings at SMX Advanced last month and at least one Googler said something like, "We'll take a look at it."
Chris White
03/13/2013 06:31 pm
Less competition means you win the bid! We have compiled a list of the "other" guys in the online auction business just as good as Ebay. click here