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Active Content Sandbox — Examine individual listings.
In June 2017, eBay began blocking active content in listings.
Active content consists of scripts, flash elements, and embedded objects,
like those often used to create photo galleries, menus, sales maps, feedback display,
search boxes, visitor counters, social sharing icons,
tabbed terms, promo galleries, and similar devices that might
dynamically build a page or change page content after the page has loaded.
In those first months, active content will be allowed during creation, relisting, or revising,
but the active content will be blocked from rendering with the page;
so the appearance or functionality of your page will change.
In the Fall of 2017, eBay will begin blocking the creation, relisting,
or revision of pages with active content.
Non-conforming GTC listings will also be affected.
eBay store pages will not be affected by the Active Content ban until sometime in 2018.
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PLEASE NOTE:
This tool update is released ahead of the Bulk tools and has more scan features than the existing Bulk tools.
The updated Bulk tools should be available in a few days and will have a September version at the top when released.
In the box below, enter an eBay item#, eBay item URL, Web Page URL, or paste your entire description code.
Click the "SCAN" button. Then scroll down to view your page and code results:
Paste eBay Item# or Web Page URL or HTML code below:
Mark residual logo codes or wrappers to be removed. Use with care, results may vary.
Filters marked * may change your page appearance. Use carefully.
Indicate custom code segments for removal or replacement. Matches must be exact to be applied.
Find code that:
starts with (reqd)...
START: • Add the starting text here when using the end text box. • Or find an entire block of code for replacement, without using the end box.
• Regex is allowed here when the end box is not used:
/( )/
or /( )/i
• To add text before or after the description without any removal, use keyword
<<+BEFORE>> or
<<+AFTER>> in this column, with new text in the replacement column.
• To remove all. <<-ALL>>
• To remove <<FROM-START>> to end marker.
?ends with (opt)...
END: • Ending text is useful if inner content is long or might vary.
If this field is used, all text between, and including, the "start" and "end" will be marked for removal.
• Regex is not allowed.
• To remove from start marker
<<TO-END>>,
start marker must not be Regex.
?replacement (opt)...
REPLACEMENT: • Replacement text or code.
• Leave empty to remove marked content without replacement.
• Regex is not allowed.
• Back references from
<<+2>>
to <<+99>> are allowed.
• Extract and add Item number
<<+ITEMID>> to replacement text.
?
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Coded Filters
Click a width to see how your page might fit on smaller devices
Your page will appear here with active content disabled:Original HTML source code appears below Open to view webpage or HTML
See What Changed below
Messages.
When you scan your listing description, this tool will look for Active Content, non-secure HTTP, external Links, and missing Link Targets.
The Active Content will consist of Scripts, Objects, form Actions, and Events (all colored pink on the markup tab).
Banned Hyperlinks (yellow) and missing link Targets (orange) will be highlighted.
In order for links to work correctly, they must include target="_blank" to open a new window or tab,
so this tool will attempt to locate and modify your links.
If your listing links to an external stylesheet, this tool will also scan the stylesheet for HTTP issues, but can not modify external stylesheets.
You can choose how much to modify on the Filtered tab by selecting any of the options at the top of the tab:
No Change:
Display the original code without any content removed.
Strip Active:
Remove only the major Active Content components.
Links that are inside scripts and objects are automatically stripped out with the scripts,
which can change the report of links remaining.
Remove non-eBay Links:
Remove links that point to non-eBay pages.
Modify Link Targets:
Modify or add missing target attributes.
Change to SSL:
Change HTTP to HTTPS within embedded media (not required on links).
Find/Replace:
Using the Custom filter feature, find and replace user specified blocks of code.
Change All:
Apply all filters to remove Active Content, modify links,
and apply the Custom find/replace feature.
After filtering your code, use the popup preview to see how it will display.
If you are happy with the changes, you can use the Revise button on the Filtered tab
to access your listing and manually change out the description.
You must be logged into eBay before you can use the Revise button.
Deep scan your eBay listing with this Active Content checker:
With eBay's June 2017 ban on active content,
we have put together a suite of tools to help sellers comply.
In addition to this test and removal tool,
we have a bulk scanner to identify listings that contain
Active Content, link issues, and SSL media URLs, and a bulk find/replace editor that will create eBay File Exchange revision files.
See all of our eBay Scan tools.
Additionally, we have a whole suite of free tools that will create replacements for those banned elements,
like menus, rollover and clickable photo galleries, terms tabs, and promo galleries.
Instructions Examine and Remove Active Content.
The Active Content Sandbox tool will colorize the HTML codes that need attention (for the do-it-yourself types). It will also offer a stripped version (for the non-techies) that can be previewed and pasted into a listing revision.
Enter an item number, item URL, or paste HTML code into the top box.
Custom settings: details
The Custom button will open a screen where you can set filters for a custom scan.
Custom Checkbox Filters:
The scanner will automatically find and remove Active Content, but not the leftover code surrounding it.
The checkbox filters can be used to clean out some of the leftover code from known widgets.
They won't find all the code, or might encompass too much code, so experiment before committing.
Custom Text Filters:
The text filters support customized find/replace strings.
If you set text filters here, be sure to checkmark the box on the resulting Filtered tab, after the scan, in order to remove/replace that custom content.
A Custom text filter row will be ignored if its first text box is left empty. If custom data is entered as plain text, the scan will only find exactly matching (case-insensitive) text, with the same spacing and line breaks. The scan will find as many matches as exist in the file. If start text and end text are both entered, the scan will find all text between those markers, including the markers. If the replacement field is empty, the matching text will be removed, otherwise the matching content will be replaced by the text entered in the replacement field.
Alternatively, a PHP Regex wildcard format can be used in the first text field of a line. The second field must be empty. The regex string must be enclosed in at least one set of parentheses and be further wrapped in enclosing slashes. The "case-insensitive" designator "i" may be appended or omitted to modify the match. This tool will then auto-detect your regex when it sees a field that starts with "/(" and ends with either ")/" or ")/i". The replacement field on this tool must be either plain text or empty for replacement or removal of all the matches.
Use the help "?" on each field to see special tags for adding new code to the beginning or end of a file, or to remove code between a marker and the beginning or end of a file.
When using Regex start markers, back-annotation of the replacement code is also supported. This allows you to remove a block of text, yet preserve parts of that text to be inserted into your replacement text. Starting with the opening parenthesis number "one" on the left of your regex, consecutive left parentheses are numbered from left to right. However, since "one" is the entire phrase, it can not be used to back annotate itself, as that would destroy the remainder of the match, so you may start with the second and subsequent parentheticals.
To use back-annotation in your replacement text, insert the placeholders <<+2>> to <<+99>> wherever the parenthetical clause found by the Regex is to be inserted in your replacement text. This feature can be used to reformat image tags or videos, or to pull and reuse content during a makeover.
With these custom scan filters in place, a user can load different listing descriptions and the same filters will be applied to each. Be sure to set the Custom checkbox on the Filtered tab to apply the custom find/replace to the repaired code.
Click the SCAN button to load the page and start a scan. The scan will automatically find and mark Active Content, non-eBay links, non-SSL media URLs, and Link targets that are missing or wrong.
Check width. When reviewing your listing in the Sandbox scanner, checkmark the "320" width option to see if your description is mobile friendly.
If you see a horizontal scrollbar under the narrow preview, then your description is too wide for mobile devices and you may want to consider changing the layout. If you don't see a scroller, then your listing adapts correctly to mobile viewing.
Review the three results tabs at the bottom:
RESULTS TABS:
Messages:
The results of your Sandbox scan are reported on the Messages tab. If no issues were found, then the listing is compliant with the ban on Active Content.
Markup:
If issues are reported, click to the Markup tab to see a color-coded markup of the results. The color coding simplifies the seller's task of finding Active Content problems. This tab is informational only. You will not copy anything from this tab.
Pink markup
(with red lines through the text) represents Active Content that should be removed
(scripts, forms, objects, etc).
Dark orange
(with brown lines through the text) indicate external links
that do not point to an eBay page or to an approved
third-party service.
These should be removed, or you may revise them to point to eBay Pages.
(Note that eBay can change these exceptions at any time,
so, while the link results in this tool are fairly accurate, they are not definitive.)
Light orange
marks the attribute target="_blank" that should be added to your links,
or you may need to replace the wrong target with the correct target.
Turquoise
will indicate embedded media that is not on a secure server.
These may be automatically selected, but you will need to determine if the server
supports SSL before changing the protocol from http to https.
Green and Blue
indicate changes applied using the custom widget and filter settings.
Filtered:
Then click the Filtered tab where you will find the modified code with Active Content and non-eBay links removed and targets repaired. Use the popup preview to make sure your listing still displays properly after being stripped. If it does, this filtered code will be your new description. Click the Revise button on the Filtered tab to open eBay's description editor where you can paste your corrected code from the Filtered tab into the HTML tab of eBay's description editor.
(Note: Depending on which listing editor you use, you may see the HTML tab or just a link in eBay's toolbar to switch to HTML view.)
You can perform the final listing revision in either order:
Copy the Filtered code (that puts it in your computer clipboard).
Click the Revise button to open eBay.
Switch to the HTML view of eBay's description editor.
Delete the code in your eBay description.
Paste the new copied code (which is already in your clipboard.)
Or, you can
Click the revise button to open eBay.
Switch to the HTML view of eBay's description editor.
Delete the code in your eBay description.
Go back to the Filtered tab and copy the code.
Paste the copied code into the HTML tab of eBay's editor.
The first step toward mobile compatibility is to
use CSS to make your photos and page elements flexible,
or simply avoid using elements that are wider than 300 pixels.
When the page has been made mobile friendly, add this line of code
to the top of your item description on the HTML tab of the listing form.
This viewport tag will advise the browser that the content will reformat correctly for mobile browsers,
and that no special scaling is required to display the page.
What Template Designers should know.
Designers would like to know exactly what will be banned
so that future creations will be compliant.
eBay will take advantage of an industry standard browser feature called
iFrame sandbox to block Active Content.
The "sandbox" attribute is defined in the HTML5 specification:
Our descriptions are already placed in an iFrame when displayed on eBay,
so eBay need only add that simple sandbox attribute to their HTML and
the below active content in our pages will be automatically disabled in supporting browsers.
That's what eBay means when they say our active content will fail to render.
The Sandbox will:
treat the content as being from a unique origin (iframes and cross-talk are already blocked on eBay).
block form submission (action="").
block script execution (scripts and click events).
prevent content from using plugins (through <embed>, <object>, <applet>, or other).
prevent content from navigating its top-level browsing context (access or replace eBay's browser page).
block automatically triggered features (such as automatically playing a video or automatically focusing a form control).
All the newer browsers support sandbox (exceptions are Opera mini, Opera 12 and lower, and IE 9 and lower).
Knowing this attribute will be implemented will make it easier to test one's own code
for compliance by creating a description page and testing it in an iframe with the sandbox attribute.
That is exactly what this tool does. Additionally, eBay will allow links to other pages by
loosening the sandbox restrictions with two tokens:
"allow-popups" and "allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox".
For properly functioning links, be sure that all links include the attribute target="_blank".
In general, only links
that point to other eBay pages will be allowed.
For seller videos that would be blocked by these new rules,
eBay is working toward a solution to continue to allow YouTube videos.
In the meantime, the YouTube & Vimeo converter will generate a linked video that is compatible with eBay.
eBay's own solution will most likely be implemented in 2020, and we will adjust this tool accordingly.
Active Content Sandbox — Examine individual listings.
