We’ve heard from numerous sellers over the last few days that they’re having problems accessing their own and other sellers’ About Me pages on eBay UK. On the View Item page, the link to the Me page seems to point back to the same page you’re on; the link at the top of the Shop home page doesn’t work (though AFAIK the one in the sidebar normally does); several of the links from within My eBay don’t seem to work… the list goes on, the problem seems to be intermittent, and of course, there are conspiracy theories.
The About Me page is – still – the one page on eBay where a seller is permitted to link an off-eBay commercial website, and lots of sellers – myself included – have speculated in the past that we’d see it disappear. In the US, a revised links policy saw off-site links banned even from About Me for a while in 2008, but that policy was quickly reversed.
But for now, at least, sellers can rest easy: these non-linking links are a glitch, and James the eBay UK Community Manager has confirmed that eBay will be fixing them. How much of a priority that fix will be remains to be seen: if you’re relying on your About Me page to offer your buyers crucial information re. their eBay purchases, you might want to look at other options for that.
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