• Marketing Land
  • Sections
    • CMO
    • Social
    • SEM
    • SEO
    • Analytics
    • Display
    • Retail
    • MarTech
    • Resources
    • More
    • Home
  • Marketing Land
  • CMO
  • Social
  • SEM
  • SEO
  • Analytics
  • Display
  • Retail
  • MarTech
  • Resources
  • More
  • SUBSCRIBE

Marketing Land

Marketing Land
  • CMO
  • Social
  • SEM
  • SEO
  • Analytics
  • Display
  • Retail
  • MarTech
  • Resources
  • More
  • Home
  • Newsletters
  • Home
SEM

eBay: Google SEO Changes Hurt Core Business And Revenues

Yesterday, eBay announced second quarter earnings which just beat analysts’ expectations. However, revenue fell short of projections. The company earned $0.69 per share (vs. $0.68 expected) against revenue of $4.37 billion (vs. $4.38 billion expected). During the quarter, eBay suffered a major security breach and global password reset. In addition, it faces intensifying competition from Google, […]

Greg Sterling on July 17, 2014 at 2:20 pm
  • More

new ebay logoYesterday, eBay announced second quarter earnings which just beat analysts’ expectations. However, revenue fell short of projections. The company earned $0.69 per share (vs. $0.68 expected) against revenue of $4.37 billion (vs. $4.38 billion expected).

During the quarter, eBay suffered a major security breach and global password reset. In addition, it faces intensifying competition from Google, Amazon and a host of smaller rivals.

The company acknowledged that Google algorithm changes had adversely affected its growth in the quarter. On the earnings call yesterday eBay CFO Bob Swan said that SEO wasn’t driving as much traffic to eBay’s core Marketplaces business, which adversely impacted growth:

Now, let’s turn to the Marketplaces business. Marketplaces delivered $2.2 billion in revenue, which grew 6%, GMV grew 8%, and operating margin declined 340 basis points. It was a challenging quarter. As John indicated, we got off to a good start, but we had significant obstacles late May. The combination of the cyberattack and the Google SEO had an immediate and dramatic impact on GMV growth. June GMV growth was 7% driven by slower active buyer growth and lower conversion. In light of these events, we have made significant investments to get eBay users reengaged, including couponing, seller incentives and increased marketing spend . . .

Swan later added that eBay’s Marketplaces business now “has to dig out of a hole. While we are confident we will work through the global password reset and the SEO changes it will take longer and cost more.”

Initially, it seemed that eBay had been hit by a change to Google’s automated “Panda” algorithm, which seeks to prevent low-quality “thin” content from ranking well. However, it turns out that eBay was hit by a manual penalty, where a human being at Google decided some of the site was engaging in spam.

Accordingly eBay will probably be compelled to spend more on AdWords. That’s ironic because the company recently re-issued a report that forcefully argued paid search was mostly ineffective as an advertising vehicle for major brands.

Also see our story on Search Engine Land, which goes into more depth, including an estimate of how much the penalty may cost eBay in lost revenue, plus eBay’s plans to do better with paid search and social: Google Penalty Hits eBay’s Bottom Line, May Cost Up To $200 Million In Revenue.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.



About The Author

Greg Sterling
Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land, a member of the programming team for SMX events and the VP, Market Insights at Uberall.

Related Topics

Channel: SEMeBayGoogle AdsGoogle: SEO

We're listening.

Have something to say about this article? Share it with us on Facebook, Twitter or our LinkedIn Group.

Get the daily newsletter digital marketers rely on.
See terms.

ATTEND OUR EVENTS

MarTech 2021: March 16-17

MarTech 2021: Sept. 14-15

MarTech 2020: Watch On-Demand

×

Attend MarTech - Click Here


Learn More About Our MarTech Events

April 13, 2021: SMX Create

May 18-19, 2021: SMX London

June 8-9, 2021: SMX Paris

June 15-16, 2021: SMX Advanced

June 21-22, 2021: SMX Advanced Europe

August 17, 2021: SMX Convert

November 9-10, 2021: SMX Next

December 14, 2021: SMX Code

Available On-Demand: SMX

Available On-Demand: SMX Report

×


Learn More About Our SMX Events

White Papers

  • The Six Principles of Building a Memorable Customer Experience
  • 5 Reasons Agencies Adopt Marketing Automation
  • How to Land Higher-Paying Clients: A 7-Step Framework to Grow Your Agency
  • B2B Marketing Trends Shaping 2021
  • State of Email Marketing 2021 Report
See More Whitepapers

Webinars

  • Crawl Your Way Towards Better Search Results With Dynamic Rendering
  • The AI Revolution Is Coming to Every Stage of Your Buyer’s Journey
  • The Fundamentals of Link Building for E-Commerce & Affiliate Sites in 2021
See More Webinars

Research Reports

  • Local Marketing Solutions for Multi-Location Businesses
  • Enterprise Digital Asset Management Platforms
  • Identity Resolution Platforms
  • Customer Data Platforms
  • B2B Marketing Automation Platforms
  • Call Analytics Platforms
See More Research

Attend SMX For Only $99

h
Receive daily marketing news & analysis.

Channels

  • MarTech
  • CMO
  • Social
  • SEM
  • SEO
  • Mobile
  • Analytics
  • Retail
  • Display

Our Events

  • MarTech
  • SMX

Resources

  • White Papers
  • Research
  • Webinars

About

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Marketing Opportunities
  • Staff

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters
  • RSS
  • Youtube

© 2021 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.