After years of seller complaints over ads served up by Google, Yahoo and Shopping.com at the bottom of its search results pages, eBay has admitted that the ads lead to concern on the part of buyers.

eBay's corporate blogger was answering a seller's question about a new advertising program the company is launching called eBay AdCommerce, which lets sellers buy advertising but limits the links to eBay listings. The seller wrote in the eBay Ink comment field, "It makes no sense to me if they aren't going to let sellers advertise their websites."

eBay's blogger replied, "People come to eBay to shop. Buying an ad on eBay gets your product in front of them when they are actually shopping for things you are probably selling. These ads have a similar look and feel to regular listings and we think buyers would be concerned if they clicked on one and were taken offsite. Rather, we think that a consistent shopping experience that is under PayPal's buyer protection plan makes buyers more confident and more willing to buy more stuff from smaller businesses. Small business is the engine of eBay, and our ad network is here to serve their needs for more exposure to likely buyers."

Yet he goes on to say that sellers who have their own websites through ProStores will be allowed to participate in the program, in spite of just having written that buyers would be concerned if they clicked on one and were taken offsite.