eBay has redesigned the PayPal home page and announced it is looking for users to test it. Some of the changes PayPal is testing on the home page include different designs for personal and business users and better overviews of the products and services offered by PayPal. The newly designed home page also includes new navigation and the ability to search the entire PayPal site for information.

PayPal is inviting users to beta test the newly designed site and give it feedback. A link at the top of the site lets users toggle between the two versions. After logging in to the new version, visitors will notice redesigned tabs that display throughout the site, but it isn't until users visit the home page that they see the major design and content changes, including the new search box.

The new site refresh has analytics behind it to provide more data. Spokesperson Amanda Pires said that while this is not the purpose of the site refresh, "some of the analytics enabled by the new site will allow PayPal to evaluate what is of most interest to customers. This will allow us to better tailor content on the site and be more responsive to customers."

While the new design is not related to security, a PayPal executive said the company wanted to make people aware of the changes in such a way that they would not automatically assume they were on a spoof site when they saw the new design. Pires said PayPal initiatives such as the security key, safe browsers, and education are the company's best defense against spoof. (PayPal officially rolled out the security key earlier this month during the eBay Live conference http://tinyurl.com/ywbqhj.)

The current timeline for site-wide ("everybody sees it") rollout of the new design is late summer.

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200706261311322.html