eBay Promoted Listings Vanish From Certain Sort Options Amid Possible Ad System Update
UPDATE 10-23-25
eBay has confirmed this is an intentional change, implemented in early October 2025.
We made an update to search in early October to keep results as relevant as possible for how people choose to browse. You’ll no longer see ads in certain sort types (like “nearest first”), but Promoted Listings will still show in Best Match and Top Picks to help connect buyers with items they’re most likely to love.
eBay is no longer showing Promoted Listings ads in certain searches when using Time, Price, or Distance sorting options, raising questions about possible advertising changes on the horizon.
For years, eBay has shown Promoted Listings ads in search results regardless of which sort order is selected - but the exact number and placement of ads may vary depending on whether the buyer was using the default Best Match, Time newly listed or ending soon, Price highest or lowest first, or Distance.
In some instances, when selecting any option other than Best Match, buyers may have even been shown both the Organic and Promoted versions of the same listing within the search results.
Liz Morton
For example, in this screenshot from 2022,the Price+Shipping lowest first sort option resulted in two distinct listings each being shown twice - once as an organic result and once as a sponsored Promoted Listing result.
But now it appears there has been a very recent change to search results, with eBay no longer showing Sponsored Promoted Listings ads within the standard results feed for Time, Price, or Distance sort options.
For example, a search for Headphones when left in the default Best Match sort shows 14 out of 60 results on page 1 as Promoted Listings with the legally required Sponsored tagged, plus 2 horizontal scrolling ad carousels (Picked For You and From Our Popular Brands) which are also marked as Sponsored.
However, if you switch the same search to any of the other sort options, there are no longer any Sponsored Promoted Listings shown in the regular results.
I tried this same experiment with about a dozen search terms across a variety of categories and saw consistent results, both in List View and Gallery View.
In some cases there may still be a Promoted Stores banner ad at the top of the page before the search results start and there may still be one or more of the horizontal ad carousels inserted in the middle or bottom of the page - but none of the regular results display the Sponsored tag when scrolling down the page.
It's long been known that most ad impressions sellers see in reports are generated from having their Promoted Listings displayed on the view item/listing page where eBay may stuff 300+ ads onto a single page, so it's unclear exactly what impact these search change may have on impression and click through rates for Promoted Listings ads.
And while I am seeing this same ad-free experience using multiple browsers both logged in and incognito, it's possible this may simply be a test rather than a permanent change.
If so, it wouldn't be the first time as eBay previously tested removing Promoted Listings ads from the view item page - a move that lead to massive outcry from sellers whose impressions and sales were negatively impacted by the undisclosed test.
Liz Morton
It's also always possible this could be due to a technical issue, rather than an intentional test or change, especially since eBay has been experiencing a cascade of glitches over the last few days - though the fact that it doesn't affect Best Match results may make a technical issue less likely.
The move comes as eBay is making other changes to advertising, including moving Promoted Stores campaign to monthly budget pacing, and sellers brace for the eventuality of controversial attribution changes launched in the UK, Australia and Europe earlier this year to come to the US.
Liz Morton
From the buyer perspective, it is a much better experience not to have ads appear in sorted searches - especially since the way eBay previously displayed these ads explicitly ignored the user's sorting preference, for example showing higher priced items in higher placements on the page even when sorting by Price: lowest first.
One could argue the practice of having ads which ignore the user set sorting preference is at the very least not consumer friendly and could in fact be confusing, misleading or considered dark pattern design.
Anecdotally, I'm hearing from users that ads were still being shown in sorted searches as recently as 3-4 weeks ago, so this change appears to have occurred sometime in the last month.
And coincidentally, almost exactly a month ago, Amazon agreed to a historic $2.5 Billion settlement with the FTC over alleged dark pattern design practices in Prime membership sign up and cancellation processes.
Liz Morton
It's entirely possible eBay may be "reading the room" and preemptively cleaning up a potential compliance problem with these sorted search advertising changes or that they may have gotten a quiet "nudge" from regulatory bodies to make this change.
eBay has not responded to request for comment about this apparent Promoted Listings search change as of time of publishing.
Stay tuned for updates and let us know in the comments below if you are seeing Promoted Listings ads no longer being shown in Time, Distance, or Price sorted eBay searches.
