Google, Froogle, GoogleBase and eBay Shops

Google, it seems, is making swift and strategic changes to expand and diversify its customer base.

Until quite recently, Google was just the place for a fast and comprehensive search of the web – nothing too fancy, just quick and accurate results for the keywords you entered.

Then along came Froogle shopping and with it, the opportunity to have your eBay items listed in the world’s number one search engine – a great way of increasing visitors to your eBay shop.

And then GoogleBase was released in beta trial format – offering free entry for product inventories as well as a lead through to classified advertising. GoogleWallet is still an unconfirmed rumour, but if it comes, it will probably be a PayPal lookalike.

During October, Google made a major change to the way its’ search engine tries to remove spam from its’ index – unfortunately, with a lot of “collateral damage” to legitimate web pages, including removing many millions of eBay items with a consequent drop in traffic for eBay sellers.

On 23 October, every one of eBay’s items were removed from Froogle – just for one day – but some people are asking, “was this a mistake or a trial run? – is Google planning to take all it’s search traffic away from eBay?”

Many eBay shop owners are starting to wonder what’s going on – is eBay going to do something to protect its sellers and their market place. Perhaps everyone should be prepared for major announcements soon? Yahoo!, wouldn’t that be great?

Ex Formula 1 Drivers Collectables Set to Climb in Value?

Congratulations to the GP Masters team and all the retired Formula 1 drivers who competed in front of 70,000 fans yesterday (Sunday, 13 November) at the Grand Prix Masters inaugural race at the Kyalami circuit in South Africa.

And wasn’t it great too (at least for we slightly older motor racing enthusiasts) to hear Murray Walker (aged 82!) returning to a permanent position as commentator in the series. Hearing the “real” F1 theme back on the BBC also brought a lump to the throat and a little tear to the eye.

To be at least 45 (the minimum age for ex F1 championship-winning drivers to qualify for the race series) and still be able to even fit into these cars is remarkable.

But to be also able to drive for 30 laps non-stop in a 650 BHP racing car with no traction control and still keep the competition at bay is almost incredible.

Yet that is what Il Lione (Nigel Mansell, to most people except the Ferrari Tifosi fans) achieved yesterday after qualifying in pole position. Mansell finished the race less than 0.5 seconds in front of Emerson Fittipaldi in second position and Ricardo Patrese in third place.

With a planned seven or more races next season, including possibly Silverstone, it wouldn’t be surprising if these GP Masters attracted a loyal and considerable following.

Now where did I put that Blue and Yellow Number 5 Williams model that Nigel used to drive – and where oh where is the Silverstone programme he autographed – got to get them listed on eBay quick!

Is eBay Harming Charities?

Yet again, eBay has come in for criticism on regional television in the UK – this time on the BBC’s Look North news program (Tuesday 8 November).

So what has eBay done wrong? Well it seems that donations of second hand clothes, books and other items to charity shops in the high street are rapidly declining. The conclusion appears to be that instead of donating items they do not want to charity shops, more and more people are deciding to raise cash for themselves by listing their bric-a-brac on eBay, the world’s largest online auction.

While that statement may have some basis in fact, the counterbalance is that many Charities have decided to keep up with the changing world in which we live by joining eBay and having their own virtual shops as well as a physical presence in the High Street.

Oxfam has, for some years, been in the forefront when it comes to new ideas and making use of technology to further its’ corporate objectives of raising money to help stamp out hunger and poverty in the emerging Nations.

A representative of Oxfam was interviewed and pointed out that times change and Oxfam was taking advantage of new ways of raising funds – including setting up their own eBay Charity shop.

eBay has a complete section dedicated to charity auctions and even features the BBC’s famous Pudsey Bear on its’ home page to help raise public awareness of how online auctions can be a very effective way of raising funds for good causes.

So come on everyone, it’s not down to eBay Corporate to make charity fundraising on eBay a practical proposition. It’s up to you and me to do our bit too by donating items for these Charity sales. And come on BBC, let’s put a more positive slant on how the eBay community helps charities – times do change and so do the methods of raising funds for good causes.

eBay Sellers Boost Royal Mail Profits

Two years ago, the Royal Mail postal service was reported to be losing around £2million each day.

But the last reported figures showed a massive turnaround for the Royal Mail to an enormous £220 million profit.

Whilst this dramatic change has been accredited to cutting costs, partly by shedding some 30,000 staff from the payroll, other sources claim there is a quite different reason – eBay!

The volume of packages mailed by sellers of items on eBay has increased tremendously over the last couple of years. It’s reported that Royal Mail offices in the UK have seen an increase in postal volume of around 66% since 2003.

Apparently, from a total of 100 post offices who were surveyed by the Sunday Telegraph, almost ¾ attributed the increase in mail volume to eBay packages.

If the length of queues at our local post office is any guide, I’d say this assessment about eBay is correct – there has to be an opportunity for some enterprising 3rd party to launch eBayPost as a time-saving service to the eBay community?!

Ever Heard of Jagger 1 2 or 3?

Ever Heard of Jagger 1 2 or 3?

To most of us, the word Jagger is something associated with a Rolling Stone. But for the webmasters of this world (webmasters run websites) Jagger has become a real headache over the past several weeks.

Jagger 1, 2 and 3 are the implementation phases of a massive change in the way that Google, the world’s largest and most profitable search engine, indexes and presents web pages.

It seems these changes are being made by Google in an attempt to get rid of so-called spam sites which use a variety of tricks to attract search traffic from Google. Quite often, you will see snippets from sites appearing in the SERPS (search engine results pages) which look like what you’re looking for. But when you click on them you can be instantly re-directed to another page – sometimes to unsavoury “adult content” even when your query was about golf clubs or something else quite innocent.

Google’s Jagger update is also an attempt to get rid of duplicate content and pages which sometimes flood the SERPS with results that are identical or nearly identical. Google has apparently received many complaints that millions of expired eBay listings with duplicated content, have displaced other more relevant results and some schools of thought believe that eBay listings could be a specific target for removal from Google’s index.

As an eBayer myself, it seems useful that potential customers for items that I’m selling on eBay might find my listings through Google search and not just after they reach the main eBay site. But it seems possible that Jagger will massively reduce the amount of eBay listings that are indexed and so referrals to eBay shops and sellers by Google would massively reduce.

The final phase 3 of Jagger is expected to roll out sometime next week and then we’ll be able to see the impact on eBay items being indexed (or not). Should be an interesting time?!