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Does Google Hate eBay or is eBay bad at SEO?
Mike Mothner | August 21st, 2007
So in writing my previous post about eBay’s trademark bidding, I noticed something interesting: eBay does not rank as highly as one would expect for auction-related keywords in Google.
To me, this is somewhat shocking. eBay is synonymous with auctions, even used as a verb (“just eBay that!”), and yet, by looking at Google’s search results, one would now know this. Here are some of eBay’s rankings
- “online auctions” – #6
- “computer auctions” – #9
- “auction” – #6
- “auctions” – #71
Granted, being on the first page for “online auctions” is nothing to scoff at, but this is eBay! They *are* online auctions. uBid is #1 for this term, though most users have never heard of or used uBid I would imagine. I would guess that eBay is expending no effort at SEO, and uBid is making a major push. However, this points to the vulnerability of Google’s ranking algorithm. I don’t think that anyone would argue that uBid is a more relevant or respected resource than eBay for “online auctions”, which is the fundamental basis for how Google’s algorithm ranks sites: relevance and respect.
For the keyword “auctions”, for which eBay ranks on the 7th page, this is nothing less than incorrect, and I cannot fathom how Google’s algorithm is computing that result.
Altogether it boils down to the fact that SEO is not dead (despite cries around the web over the years that this is the case), and that eBay, in what might have been misplaced trust in the Google algorithm or a tad bit of arrogance, is losing out on what rightfully “should be” their top search engine rankings.
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I think google checkout will kill paypal in thee near future.
Though I think Checkout is a terrific service, I think that Paypal has such a wide user base and air of acceptability (not to mention is the dominant payment method of all eBay auctions) that it will be tough for Checkout to knock Paypal off it’s post.
It reminds me of Gmail; though Gmail is undoubtedly a success and has maybe upwards of 10 million users, it is a distant, distant third in the battle of free email services. Yahoo has over 250 million and MSN’s Hotmail service has well over 100 million. Funny thing is, nearly everyone I know uses Gmail!
it is not necessary , but google the root , that is the different.. be sure we see the stone war nearly
I like PayPal so much but I have to admit Google has the wherewithall to make them run and hide. I like what they have acheived so far and all they touch turns to gold for sure.