eBay Affiliates Fill Froogle With Spam

[mandy]

Froogle has a problem, and I assume Google Base will have the same problem. Because there are no setup fees and no per click fees, the results on Froogle are often made up of spammy results...

The major problem, though, is that the results are made up of spam and eBay affiliate listings. Almost every single store listed on the first 9 pages (90+ results) links to spam or outdated (and therefore incorrectly priced) ebay affiliate listings through a basic landing page.

full article: http://www.comparisonengines.com/?p=246

[xppman]

Here is the REAL kick in the pants for most ebays store operators IMO.
Or is IT......
The Run Around.
The Bait and Switch.
The Bamboozle.
The Big Lie.
The Irony.
What ever you want to call it.

ebay claims so many go to their site to buy wares from so many wonderful merchants.

So people set up ebay stores because they feel it is cheaper
than just running auctions.
WHAT IS IT NOW? $15.95 A MONTH + 60% in FVF'S if you sell some stuff?

Then they find out they NEED to run auctions so that eyeballs
can de redirected to their stores.
COSTING THEM MORE $$$

Many also state they used Ad Words or other Pay Per Click
ads to get people to their stores.
COSTING THEM YET MORE $$$

Also it seems that most ebays store operators feel the need
to send "feeds" to Froogle and now the Google Base?
All in hopes of at least receiving eyeballs on their ebay store and obviously hoping for sales?

What happened to "ebay claims" of so many go to their site to buy wares from so many wonderful merchants?
Is this The BIG Lie?

What happened to the "stores was going to be a cheaper
way to get listed and sell stuff on ebay"?
Is this The Bait and Switch?

I mean if the buyers were already there as ebay claims ALL THE TIME.
Is this The Bamboozle?

Why do ebays store operators have to do so much outside advertising and work
to get the eyeballs?
Is this The Run Around?


I just don't get it and mean no disrespect to any ebay store operator here.

I read many stores threads and all I see are stores operators ALWAYS working their fanny's off trying to find ways to promote these stores they all built on ebay and I see many of them paying dearly out of their own pockets in actual $$$ and time to try send buyers to their ebay stores where ebay ends up getting 60% of the take at the end of the day?
Is this The Irony?

I just don't understand.

[mandy]

The author of the original article has a followup:

Cleaning up Froogle - One Post at a Time

The one listing I’ve used as an example has gone from 225 prices to 101 prices to 29 prices; Froogle got rid of all the eBay listings and most of the spam is gone. Froogle could refine the results even more as there are still a number of Amazon affiliates with basically the same listing and MacMall, ClubMac, PC Mall, iBuyDigital, ISS Electronics, DirectDial.com are all listed twice.

While the improvements are welcome, the iPod nano example is just the tip of the iceberg and therefore I’m not changing my opinion of the site. Do a seach for ‘digital camera‘ and you come up with a ton of other issues - in general, any Froogle listing that has over 100 prices and has a large price range seems to have problems.

full artcle: http://www.comparisonengines.com/?p=252

[bargainbloodhound]

How hard would it be for GoogleBase to block some ip's?

Very hard.  If the person is using a dialup connection you can't block them because you'd also be blocking lots of potential legitimate users who must share the same IP.

Even if the person connects from a dedicated IP they can always use one of the services that masks IPs to get around any block you put in place.  We have a never ending battle with blocking (directory submission) spammers and hacker wannabees from our servers...every day we block a few more IPs and every day more keep coming to replace the ones we've blocked. 

[xppman]

Well Google could stop it. But if I understand correctly Google derives a pretty large sum of advertising dollars from ebay.

I can see were this could be sticky area for them yet can also
see that they are circling like sharks waiting for the time to go in for the kill.

What's amazing to me is how so many ebay sellers continue to grab
on to anything that may float
as the good ship ebay continues to lisp and the sharks are circling.