As anticipated, eBay will be introducing an online contextual advertising system for eBay sellers to promote auctions, reports Reuters from the eBay Developers' Conference in Las Vegas. Contextual ads will be placed on other websites in exchange for a share of the resulting eBay sales. The ads would link only to eBay auctions. A test of the program, dubbed eBay AdContext, is expected early this week.

eBay will provide its sellers with snippets of code they can embed in websites - such as blogs. The system scans the text of the website and returns links to relevant eBay sales listings. The website affiliates will receive 35-60 percent of sales, depending on volume.

eBay considers AdContext as complementary to online advertising networks offered by Google and others. Sites would likely offer both eBay and other advertising, according to eBay.