I notice that when most people send a link to an Ebay auction, they copy the link directly out of the address bar and send it. The address bar link is ugly and waaaayyy to long to send effectively as it usually wraps, breaking the ability for the recipient to simply click it. They have to execute a two-step copy-paste procedure in order to get the link copied into their own address bar.

 Here's an example...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Triumph-Bonneville-2005-BONNEVILLE-AMERICA-LOW-MILES-UPGRADES-PRISTINE_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ50036QQihZ004QQitemZ140162330230QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

The above link can be shorterized by using a free service like http://www.shrinkster.com/ or http://www.tinyurl.com/. These services are great for use with most long links; However EBay provides the ability to send short links that go directly to EBay using just the item number. It takes just a little more work because you have to copy the item number to the paste buffer and then hand-craft the link. Here's the same link using a direct EBay URL with the item number.

http://cgi.ebay.com/?ViewItem&item=140162330230

Here's the link without the item number.

http://cgi.ebay.com/?ViewItem&item=

Short Ebay Item Links Urls Shorter