EBay has pulled all of its paid search ads from Google AdWords network in the U.S in an eyebrow-raising move likely to be interpreted in the industry as a sign of deteriorating relations between the two Internet giants.Durzy characterized the decision to pull the U.S. Google ads as an instance in a continued experiment eBay does to determine the best allocation of its advertising and marketing budget.
But a source familiar with the situation said the move is an angry reaction by eBay's management to Google's decision to hold a protest party concurrent with the start of eBay Live, the company's annual conference for merchants.
Why does it matter? eBay was once the largest ad buying on all of Google.
Looking for BUBONIC PLAGUE?
Find it on Ebay!
"I wonder if they will just be replaced by affiliates."
What is ebay's current policy?
no paid ads direct to their pages?
no display url to ebay.com?
More importantly, will eBay ban anyone mentioning g checkout on Ebay and will Google bury anyone that takes paypal? Film at eleven
This will be cold war sort of i guess no one will take any action similar to above , otherwise if they do that ultimate looser will be they themselves and advantage will go to others for sure
It will be interesting to watch Microsoft or yahoo reactions or any deal in coming future
It's not the kind of activity one partner normally does with another.
Sassy G stages a protest party, too funny. Gotta hand it to them on that one. It reads like one of their April Fool's:
We’ll use the same spot where revolutionaries launched the Boston Tea Party to celebrate freedom with free food, free drinks, free live music -- even free massages.
[googlecheckout.blogspot.com...]
Enjoy the lack of ads while you can. I expect Ebay will return after their 'experiment' has run its course.
eBay is sort of synonymous with the interweb, so it may just be business as usuall. Perhaps growing offline or targeting less sophisticated users is where eBay needs to push its brand/awareness to actually pay off.
Watch google put in no seller fees for a year! That would really put the hurting on ebay.
The google protest party is in pretty bad taste.
I have to agree. Very immature. It is kind of a rule in business. You are never openly hostile to a competitor. I have known senior executives who pulled asided young exectutives and gave them hell for trash talking to a competitors face. Even worse that their competitor was also a client.
I bet they will not adjust down their selling fee's.
If the Google ad pulls hurt them significantly, they'll put those ads back.
FWIW, I fired eBay years ago as I've had ebay.com in my AdSense filter list forever.
Roughly 40% of my total traffic comes from them because my sites are retail oriented.
{{I will be the first to say "Thank God". I am so sick of seeing the ebay ads. I wonder if they will just be replaced by affiliates. }}
Affiliates in the USA are not allowed to link directly to eBay from Google as of June 1st.. I have no idea if it is related to this spat..
I'll say, that reads like retreat to me.
It's actually kind of refreshing to see big companies playing these games. Makes me feel a teensy weensy less childish in my "I'm no longer linking to you because you're doing the same stuff as me and I was here first!" relationships.
I had also hoped by now (2007) Google would have a serious ebay+paypal competitor running. Ebay+paypal has had virtually zero competition for almost a decade now (1998) and we all know what that does for consumers (they lose).
Hopefully this is a true rift that will allow/force Google to get serious about taking a bigger bite of ebay+paypal's business.
More importantly, will eBay ban anyone mentioning g checkout on Ebay...
Ebay already prohibits sellers using Google checkout to complete transactions.
FarmBoy
I agree bad taste on the party seems Google is getting a little light headed and shooting themselves in the foot, maybe to many billions made them think they are invincible.
Funny thing about this business you can be flying high one day and the next it all comes crashing down around ya...
pull their ads
eBay has already started auctioning off radio ads [cnbc.com], I wouldn't be surprised if they will be going after print and online ads soon.
The auction giant takes up to 9 positions in the SERPS for some german terms I watch in the top 30.
<conspiration theory>
I personally considered that subdomain spam and suspected G to ignore that because of the large budget...
</conspiration theory>
which is by the way not just me... threadwatch mentioned that, too!
P!
eBay introduces a Search Engine Quality Score. After eBay's Quality update, Google's landing pages abrubptly became "inactive for Search". Google will now have to increase the quality of their search results in hopes to become active again. eBay will/maybe/maybe not evaluate Google from time to time to see if their landing page quality has increased. If/when/ever their quality has increased eBay will re-activate Google keywords.
I'm so glad Google (without warning) lost a good chunk of revenue like the rest of us who got hit by their Quality BS.
Will be interesting to see how their stock reacts.
iPo
