Is eBay Cracking Down On Links In Listings, Even To Other eBay Items?
UPDATE 6-12-25
Over two weeks and multiple adamantly confident (but apparently completely incorrect) replies later, Marco@eBay has finally clarified that nothing in the policy has actually changed and links to on eBay pages are still allowed.
He also subsequently edited all of his previous posts removing the incorrect responses he had previously provided and making it look like he said all along that eBay links were still allowed.
So, if you read that community thread and are wondering why none of it make sense now, just know that you and the sellers who responded aren't crazy - eBay just has a very difficult time with concepts like transparency and integrity.
eBay has longstanding policies against taking potential buyers off site, but linking to other items on the site may now be taboo as well, according to UK community forum staff.
The question came up in a recent weekly UK community forum chat, when a seller asked:
Is it still ok to put a clickable link in an item's html description to another ebay item that you are selling?
One of the eBay employees in the chat, Marco, responded:
I believe this is no longer allowed due to security reasons, but I will double check for you just to confirm, let me just double check that for you and as soon as I get confirmation, I will let you know here.
After the chat ended and was locked to further non-staff replies, Marco came back to confirm that no links are allowed in listings, while referring to the eBay UK Links Policy page.
Thanks for your patience on this. I've just confirmed that links are not allowed, you can see the full policy here.
Unfortunately, that did not clear up the question as the page Marco linked to explicitly says that links to other eBay pages (including listings) are allowed - which is what that page has said for many years.
Anecdotally, I've heard from multiple US and UK sellers reporting that they have had listings either removed or blocked from being posted for supposedly violating the link policy when the only links were to other eBay pages and others saying they also get warnings or have messages blocked when trying to send links to eBay item pages - but it was not clear if these reports were just one off errors or if there had been an unannounced change to the Links policy.
So just to make sure Marco's response wasn't simply a matter of confusion or misunderstanding, I posted a follow up question in the eBay UK community to confirm.
Links In Listings - Weekly Chat Follow Up
Hey marco@ebay I was just reading through today's chat posts and saw a question about links in listings that could use some follow up...
...You said you didn't think that was allowed but would check and then came back later and said: "I've just confirmed that links are not allowed, you can see the full policy here."
However, your link to the full policy shows that it still says that links to another eBay item are allowed. Did that policy change recently and the page just hasn't been updated yet?
Marco responded:
Yes, it looks like the page in question hasn't been updated, so I will flag that now, well spotted! Just to confirm and provide further clarification, no links are allowed.
I suggested that he should also pass the same information on the teams responsible for the US and other markets as well, since the policy pages applicable to those sites all also still say that linking to other eBay pages is allowed.
A week and a half later, the pages have still not been updated and other sellers say they don't believe eBay has actually changed the policy - or if they have, they obviously aren't enforcing it fairly across the board for all sellers.
I still think this is a communication issue somewhere along the lines.
I know the big, big players sometimes adhere to different rules - but if this was a change of policy - it would impact every listing from players like music magpie, world of books etc whos descriptions are full of links to other ebay URLs.
I get what has been said - but its one I absolutely don't believe. For a start - why would ebay even have an issue with their own URLs?
So I asked Marco to confirm once again, and specifically asked for a timeframe for when the help pages will be updated and when the policy will be enforced against all sellers.
While he did not answer those specific questions, he did confirm that his previous answer was correct and that links of any kind are supposedly no longer allowed.
Hi all,my reply above is still correct. I will reach out to the team in question to see what's happening with the help page.
So for now it's still a bit of a mystery - some sellers say they are being blocked from including links to their other items on eBay in messages and listing descriptions, but many other active listings still include similar links and eBay staff say the policy has changed but that hasn't actually been put in writing in the official policy pages.
But back to the question: why would eBay have a problem with people posting links to their other items, as long as they keep the potential buyer on the site?
One answer could be that eBay is increasingly desperate to keep revenue from Promoted Listings ads growing, and direct links sellers place in their own descriptions would likely not lead to ad attributable sales.
When looking at the view item page, it's important to remember that not all links are equal in terms of their value to eBay - when scrolling down the page you'll see hundreds of other items for sale (some potentially from the same seller, many from competing sellers) and many of those are sponsored Promoted Listings ads.
Since eBay receives additional fees for clicks on ads (if they are Priority cost per click ads) and/or sales that are attributed to clicks on those ads (if they are General cost per sale ads), it is to their financial benefit to have every part of the user experience - from page design to policy enforcement - set up to drive activity on the site toward actions that increase ad revenue.
Some sellers even believe that eBay has recently updated their Social sharing tools to use link shortening and redirects to increase the number of sales attributed to ads in order to increase ad revenue - and support has apparently even confirmed that is in fact what the company is doing.
Liz Morton
In that light, it would not be surprising if eBay has decided to block direct sharing of organic, non-ad attributable links in item descriptions and messages in order to force usage of social sharing tools and on page advertising instead.
I've reached out to eBay US to try to confirm if the Link Policy really is changing and will update as soon as I have more information - in the meantime, let us know in the comments below if you have been blocked from sharing links to eBay pages in message or listing descriptions!
