EBay resumed its Google AdWords advertising late Friday, but not at its former levels.
"We are now slowly turning AdWords back on, in a much more limited way than before," eBay spokeswoman Catherine England told internetnews.com in an e-mail.
Last week, eBay spokesman Hani Durzy said the company was "experimenting" with other methods to optimize traffic to its site. The move followed Google's recently canceled plans to host an event in Boston, the site of this year's eBay Live conference, to protest a clause in eBay's terms of service that prohibits merchants from using Google Checkout.
But Durzy said that while eBay was pleased Google canceled the controversial "Freedom Party," the timing of its experiment was mere coincidence.
Still, there seemed to be a bit of love loss between the long-time partners/rivals and a source familiar with the matter said the connection between eBay's displeasure with Google's Boston party and eBay's decision to withhold its enormous ad spend was real.
So it's no surprise that though eBay came back to Google, it was with announced reservations.
"The test we began last week was successful," England said.
"We found that we were not as dependent on Google AdWords as some may have thought. By re-allocating our marketing dollars to our other partners, such as Yahoo!, AOL and MSN, we were able to increase traffic and find efficiencies that will enable us to drive more value to our sellers and partners going forward."
In a statement e-mailed to internetnews.com, Google said eBay remains a valued partner: "Over the last seven years, we have worked closely with eBay to drive customers to their site and build value for their business and the business of their sellers. We look forward to a continued partnership."
This article by Nicholas Carlson originally appeared on www.internetnews.com.
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