Over the last few days, some eBay users have reported that Gallery pictures have disappeared from their search results. As was posted in our forum, listings with a non-showing Gallery picture were marked with a new icon similar to the “picture in listing” icon, and there had been some speculation that this was a permanent change. Fortunately, it’s a glitch. eBay employee Theresa posted on the Powerseller Board this morning that:
… there is currently a serious issue with the way in which gallery pictures are being shown in search results. This problem is potentially affecting those who are new users, those who have recently cleared their cookies, or those who have never customised their search view. At this stage we’re working hard to fix the problem …
It seems that code which is designed to allow users to switch Gallery pictures *off* has been left with the wrong default setting, so that rather than being able to switch Gallery off, users will need to switch it *on*. (Apparently not correct: there isn’t anything new happening with Gallery, despite what Support have said.) Those who know that this is an issue can fix it by customising their search results formatting, but of course it’s the new buyers who will be put off by the lack of pictures, and they won’t know that customising is possible.
Currently there’s no expected time for the fix to roll out, but I think it’s a fairly safe bet there’ll be a cheap listing day involving free Gallery in the offing.
Updated to add: This should now be fixed. The word from eBay [long thread warning] is that if you’re still seeing the no-Gallery version, clear your cache and cookies and it should all be back to normal.
