removing active content and contact details from listings

This morning on this ID I removed active content from 68 listings and had another 30 listings flagged that ebay says has my my contact details.

 

After removing the actgive content it appears ebay is now telling me I now have 47 listings on this ID with my "contact details" (even though I only removed HTTP from my listings and certainly did not add anything. 

 

Anybody else getting the crazy messages?

 

Can somebody please check out this listing 380923399918 and enlighten my how I have violated ebay policy... before I disappear up my own nether regions searching for my faux pas

 

Removing contact information

From September 2017 you won’t be able to include contact information, i.e. phone numbers, email addresses or social media profiles, in item descriptions, images, eBay Stores or seller profiles.

TELL ME AND I WILL FORGET, SHOW ME AND I MAY REMEMBER,, INVOLVE ME AND I WILL UNDERSTAND Confucius 450bc
Message 1 of 18
Latest reply
17 REPLIES 17

removing active content and contact details from listings

The bots are probably picking up

 

"please email me with location for a (fright) freight quote"

 

 

As silly as it seems the above is likely being seen as a request to trade off eBay.

 

Message 11 of 18
Latest reply

removing active content and contact details from listings

Thanks for the suggestions KLR and Fred. I tried/played with them both to no avail.

 

It is obviously a glitch given that I when removed parts of my listings this morning to comply with the active content policy the number of

 

listings that ebay flagged as not meeting the contact policy increased by 17 listings.... ie from 30 non compliant when I started deleting

 

and 47 non compliant when I finished deleting. 

 

 

TELL ME AND I WILL FORGET, SHOW ME AND I MAY REMEMBER,, INVOLVE ME AND I WILL UNDERSTAND Confucius 450bc
Message 12 of 18
Latest reply

removing active content and contact details from listings

So.... half a bottle of rum and many hours of searching and head scratching later... I have come to the conclusion that I have been

 

listing here much too long.

 

But I also think I have found the root of the problem.

 

...... laziness.....

 

I noticed that all my 47 non compliant listings were originally uploaded on just 3 separate dates.

 

This is where the lazy part comes in.

 

Since the demise of TL when I list I have been grabbing any listing and using the sell similar button and change the category and speel and pics etc to suit the new listing.

 

Many years ago ebay used to charge per picture on a listing so I used to embed pictures into the listing HTML.

 

Somewhere along the line ebay stopped allowing embedded pictures and they had to be removed.

 

Somehow I left the remnants of a hyperlink behind copied and pasted below that does not appear in the normal view and I have

 

picked that flawed listing as my template

 

<a href="http://s302.photobucket.com/albums/nn96/1VIEWMONT1071/ebay%20patterns/? target=" _blank"=""></a><a href="http://s302.photobucket.com/albums/nn96/1VIEWMONT1071/ebay%20patterns/? target=" _blank"=""></a>&nbsp;

 

All of my non compliant listings have that or another photobucket broken link in them and the good ones definitely have no hidden http address at all.

 

So after all that I yelled Eureka and smugly removed thew offending bit of HTTP junk from the test listing

 

... hoping to see now only 46 non compliant items, but no still 47

 

... so now I am just getting drunk...

 

even though it did not come off the naughty list I am pretty sure that is the problem with my listings anyways

 

 

 

 

TELL ME AND I WILL FORGET, SHOW ME AND I MAY REMEMBER,, INVOLVE ME AND I WILL UNDERSTAND Confucius 450bc
Message 13 of 18
Latest reply

removing active content and contact details from listings

ooooh they even come up as hyperlinks... broken hyperlinks anyways... hic

 

TELL ME AND I WILL FORGET, SHOW ME AND I MAY REMEMBER,, INVOLVE ME AND I WILL UNDERSTAND Confucius 450bc
Message 14 of 18
Latest reply

removing active content and contact details from listings

To find the non-complaint links use the following:

 

Go to the listing that has the problem. 

Click Revise Your Item. 

Go down to Additional Item Description.

On the right hand side click on the "New Mobile Friendly Checker"

On the Pop Up Checker click the "Non Compliant Links" and should list the problem link

 

 

PS Those links are not secure ie HTTPS this will be a requirement from October.  Check with the provider to find out whether they support HTTPS.

Message 15 of 18
Latest reply

removing active content and contact details from listings

I had 110.

The links thar didn't work for me were auctiva windows, and visitors counters that did't update properly, turbo lister and old stuff tat wsn't showing. and a couple in the descriptions coppied off other websites.

regards Anthony

 

 

Message 16 of 18
Latest reply

removing active content and contact details from listings

r
@fred_foofighter wrote:

To find the non-complaint links use the following:

 

Go to the listing that has the problem. 

Click Revise Your Item. 

Go down to Additional Item Description.

On the right hand side click on the "New Mobile Friendly Checker"

On the Pop Up Checker click the "Non Compliant Links" and should list the problem link

 

 

PS Those links are not secure ie HTTPS this will be a requirement from October.  Check with the provider to find out whether they support HTTPS

wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

 

.I have already removed all the non compliant links. The examples above were not flagged as non compliant in the checker..

 

The items are flagged in the sellers hub  as having a  personal contact policy violation. The reason given is "link"

 

 The broken links do contain some contact details when handled in a certain way.

 

How ebay thinks any normal punter.could access the HTML on one of my listings seraching for a broken link to find my contact

 

details beggars belief

 

You need to manually find the broken links by searching the  HTML and then delete them..

 

As I said the remenants have either been left in error by myself way back when or left by ebay when they "switched off" the

 

ability to embed images. 

 

I have not used photobucket embedded images in my listings since... at a guess .....2010... the hyperlinks have been laying

 

dormant  since at least then..

 

 

 

 

 

 

TELL ME AND I WILL FORGET, SHOW ME AND I MAY REMEMBER,, INVOLVE ME AND I WILL UNDERSTAND Confucius 450bc
Message 17 of 18
Latest reply

removing active content and contact details from listings

Unfortunately the Bots search the HTML not the human readable text.

 

You can still use images in your descriptions however, you need to ensure the liks are secure, and they should be mobile friendly.  Making images mobile friendly can be complicated depending on the description lay out, so not recommended by eBay.

 

If the same broken link is in all of the descriptions, if you use Turbo Lister you could use "Find and replace" ie Find "http:.//xyz\blah"

Replace " ".

Message 18 of 18
Latest reply