eBay and Google Make Amends, Kinda

It's been tit for tat for some time; eBay bans Google payments, Google tries to throw a party mocking eBay, in response to which the service pulls all of its ads, fun corporate shenanigans. It seems as though, for the moment, the two companies have made up. News.com is reporting that eBay ads will once again be serviced via Google's adwords service, but that they will also be using alternative methods to a greater extent in the future. "Hani Durzy, a spokesman for San Jose, California-based eBay, said his company later on Friday would begin advertising on Google, but at reduced levels than previously. eBay had been buying tens of millions of keyword ads on Google each year. 'I will tell you it will be in a much more limited way than it was before,' Durzy told Reuters. 'What we found is that we were not as dependent on AdWords as some people thought.'"

Re:Some people thought?

[EggyToast]

Hear hear. The ebay adwords were always the bottom of the barrel -- either words that no one else wanted, or that were moderately popular but eBay had paid so little that they were listed last.

It's sad, though, that I didn't even realize they were missing until this article came out. Sure enough, I can't think of a search in recent memory that had "Find it on eBay!" in google ads. Too bad, really; I wish I could've been more pleased with their absence.

Good.

[Triv]

Good for me, anyway - adwords on google searches for anything even remotely purchasable almost always included a generic, keyword-added eBay ad that was ignorable by default; it was approaching crapflood levels.

Let's hope that eBay pulling back will result in searches that're actually relevant. (Searching for Anime and being told that an anime sale is going on at foo.com makes sense; being told that I can buy anime on eBay is unnecessary.)

Triv

Try defining your search!

[Nushio]

You could try searching for stuff and adding "-ebay" at the end.

The "-" tells Google what to skip, so if you're looking for something in particular, and keep getting spammed with "BUY!" and "EBAY", just type your term, and add "-buy -ebay".

"Kinda" is right

[hendridm]

If given the choice between:

a) Not seeing as many eBay ads on Google, or
b) Being able to use Google Checkout on eBay

I'd choose B.

Google Payments? Who cares.

[Yvan256]

Google Payments only works in the USA, the UK.... not sure where else.

As a Canadian, Google Payments are 100% useless to me (both as a buyer and a seller).