So most of you know I have been tracking eBay links and the clicks they generate. While we know that there are many fans of eBay (and some that are not) I was not a big fan of generating income for eBay by advertising their site (through posted links). This became a bigger issue as eBay rated the rates they are charging.

My outlook on this is that we have many great people/shops/manufacturers on HobbyTalk that help keep HobbyTalk going through their generous Sponsorships. Why should eBay get a free ride?

Before I go further with my explanation let me state that we will always encourage links to sites that give information or explain things that help answer questions. Nothing has changed and you should post as you always have. I just feel that a multi-billion company should spread the love back to us peons.

Lately I have turned the links into affiliate links which means that every time you click on one of the links to go to eBay and then bid on an item, eBay pays me a few cents. You may think that those eBay links do not generate much traffic (or income) for eBay… but you may be very surprised that we send eBay almost 200 users per day via the links. Not all of those users bid on an item when they visit, but a fairly high percentage (in conversion rate terms) do.

So at this point I plan on leaving the eBay links turned on. The links will only show on non-Sponsored pages. If you see the link code when you "preview" a post you are making you have a couple choices. First is as some do now, spell eBay another way or put quotes around it. Second is you can go into your UserCP and set your Options to use the Full WYSIWYG editor.

If you have any questions you can ask them in here.