Any eBay experts here?

[the]

Does anyone know how an eBay ad like this is created?

From what I can see:

1. An ad like this appears to be generated completely "in house" by the seller, i.e., they aren't using any kind of a web site service.

2. They seem to make a basic template, which is then dropped into the eBay listing. How does one make a template like that?

3. Would it be easy to create an ad like that?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Mercedes-Benz-M-Class-HEATED-SEATS-2006-Mercedes-BENZ-ML350-4MATIC-LOADED-Make-Offer-NR_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ6337QQihZ020QQitemZ3 00239765972QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

[kstar]

eBay's auction-space accepts HTML tags, and that looks fairly basic.

You could create the code and layout in any page editor, IMO.

I believe you could create that with some very basic HTML knowledge and a decent HTML/layout program.

2¢

Best,

[MBAtarga]

Using View Page Source, looks like they are using Microsoft FrontPage 5.0 to construct their ad:

meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 5.0"
meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document"

[Danny_Ocean]

Couldn't one copy/paste the page source and insert their own data? Why re-invent the wheel?

[the]

Originally Posted by Danny_Ocean

Couldn't one copy/paste the page source and insert their own data? Why re-invent the wheel?

I like the sound of that! How would I do that?

[the]

Originally Posted by kstarnes

You could create the code and layout in any page editor, IMO.

Any recommendation for an easy to use page editor?

[kstar]

Originally Posted by the

I like the sound of that! How would I do that?

Goto the auction and use the "View Source" function in your web browser. It should be a sub-menu of "View" in Firefox and Safari . . . and probably IE if that's what you use.

You'll then see a whole page of HTML code, scripts and the actual page content. Search for the phrase "!-- Begin Description --", immediately below this is where the user added content begins. As you might expect, "!-- End Description --" marks the end of the user added content.

Select and copy all of the "stuff" between the above two lines and paste into a page editor and you will effectively have that page layout. The links and paths to pictures and other content will not work and this is where you will add paths to the pictures you will use.

Re an editor, I have been using Dreamweaver for so long that I have no idea what a good simple editor is these days. IMO, Dreamweaver is overkill for this task unless you plan on getting into building pages and moving up to more involved jobs!

I bet some other folks will recommend something. I would recommend an app that is more design based and less coding based, meaning that you would work with what looked like a desktop publishing program while the program itself created the code. Are you on Mac or Windows?

I hope this helps!

Best,

[the]

Thanks, very helpful!

When you look at the HTML codes, holy crap, that's a lot of codes! I thought I had to enter all those codes to create an ad. I downloaded a free HTML editor to play around with, I can now see how it works. Pretty simple.

Thanks!