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.

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