Is there a way to prevent ebay search from doing whatever it feels like instead of what I type?

[mostly_broncos]

For example I type the word "roll"  in search  I'm in the coins subcategory and it moves me to all categories. 

There are thousands of results in coins why would it decide to move me out of a category I just navigated to?

Why if I type  "lot"  in the dollars category does it show the tree view off to the left with Morgan highlighted all by itself when there are thousands of results in the other dollar subcategories that it hides and by not showing the full tree it leaves me no way to navigate  to the category. I know it exists  but other buyers may not know there are at least 5 other subcategories in dollar .

If I navigate to a category then I want results in that category or I want to know there are no items there.  Very simple    idea  that hasn't worked properly in about 10 years it seems like .

This is a desktop computer I can't imagine how much more annoyed I'd be trying to search on a mobile device.

I like to browse categories , newly listed  or ending soonest.  Stop changing my choices for me I clicked the friggin button for a reason.

Another annoyance , best offer for almost everyone means buy now with best offer . If I search for items with best offer I don't want to see any auctions  that start at 99 cents  , the seller is going to decline any offer under 500 bucks  because its going to be bid up to 550  im trying to remove results  I don't want by clicking the best offer button not add  1000's of more results.

I don't want my spelling corrected either  I want a pure keyword search with no suggestions ever

[mostly_broncos]

so nobody knows how to make search actually function?

[eburtonlab]

Changing keywords can change your category. For best results, set your keywords first, then set the category, then use the filters available. Bookmark or save searches that you intend to use more than once, or to serve as a convenient starting point for further searches.

When I search using keywords, I see a list of categories that the results appear in to the left of the page. Click on a category to see the subcategories under it. Categories with no results are not shown on the left side.

Searching using keywords provides more control over the results than browsing does. Instead of browsing a category, try searching using the category name as keywords. That way you can use your default search customization of sort order, items per page and seller info rather than having to change it every time.

If you do not want to see any keyword substitutions at all, put one of your keywords in quotes. This should force all your results to be literal matches of keywords in the item title or item specifics. Keyword substitutions are all or nothing, though; you cannot pick and choose. Any keyword in quotes or use of exclusion terms will prevent substitutions of any of your keywords.

[mostly_broncos]

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@eburtonlab wrote:

When I search using keywords, I see a list of categories that the results appear in to the left of the page. Click on a category to see the subcategories under it. Categories with no results are not shown on the left side.

This isn't true though  , I see a list showing some categories  with results but categories  with results are also omitted , sometimes  I even see this in browsing a store.  Today I was looking at  a seller 's other items and although the seller only had 8 items ebay refused to show more than 6 of them the other 2 were invisible and so was the category they were located in

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[eburtonlab]

I even see this in browsing a store. Today I was looking at a seller 's other items and although the seller only had 8 items ebay refused to show more than 6 of them the other 2 were invisible and so was the category they were located in

Store categories are different -- those are set up by the individual seller. I am referring only to the search results when performing a general eBay item search.

A seller's items may not appear in a search if the seller does not have a valid shipping method for your location, or if there are other problems with a listing.

[deltilogical]

I've complained about this - when I'm researching pricing in a specific category and if something is not listed, that is information I need to know, but the Ebay automated Interface decides I need returns from All Categories. 

I have posted about this before and I was told to search through the Advanced search.  

One obvious thing is using " " around your term to search for that exactly (although ebay sometimes seems to ignore it!).

From experience I learned a misspelled word can mess up my listings placement.

[mostly_broncos]

spelling should never be evaluated when searching for products. Many product names are flagged by spellchecking  but that doesn't mean you spelled it wrong.  Especially if your "misspelled" search term would yield 100's of results

I don't want any help   when I search.  Search for whatever I spell in the category I'm in. Don't move me around don't correct my spelling don't hide any hits.

Ebay constantly changes the way search works  and its idiotic, hey Ebay ,don't make me learn things.   When I was a little kid I learned how to make toast , the same method still works.   Searching for a word shouldn't change either  .

[mostly_broncos]

If I need cat food and walk into a supermarket I walk to the pet department first then the cat aisle then the area of the shelf  with the type I want.

Entire real world stores are rigidly set up this way and in fact, every item on ebay is in a bottom level subcategory.  There is no excuse for not respecting the integrity of a category search.  Its how every single thing in the world gets purchased if you think about it. 

If the store is out of cat food I don't buy bird food and  i don't buy dog food either  because  I don't own a dog or a bird .

Ebay only makes money off me if I make a purchase , what is the logic in showing me the wrong item or only some of the items? 

Assume I am actually wanting to look at what I ask about and get out of the way .

[eburtonlab]

Everyone wants an intuitive search that only shows relevant results. The problem is that different people have different ideas of what that actually means in practice.

eBay search is a compromise between many different possible search options. It is in eBay's interest to cater to marginal, impatient cell phone users who just want to enter a couple of keywords and quickly find some likely search results that they can buy.

You or I may believe that eBay's search is making foolish choices. That does not matter to eBay in the slightest. If eBay thinks a change in the way search works will result in more revenue that it costs to implement -- cost both in terms of developer's time and effort and also the number of eBay users annoyed by the change who stop using eBay altogether -- you can bet that eBay will make that change if the numbers look favorable. eBay may be mistaken about the calculation, but it is eBay's calculation to make.

If you want exact, literal results with no keyword substitutions or spell checking, then you can have that by putting quotes around one of your search keywords. That will bypass all the "smart" search features that annoy us both.

[mostly_broncos]

Will that stop it from resetting the category I'm in or taking the buy now away and showing all listings  randomly or hiding results though? 

[eburtonlab]

Using quotes or exclusions in your search keywords will prevent keyword substitution or automatic category navigation.

[woodland_gnome]

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@eburtonlab wrote:

Using quotes or exclusions in your search keywords will prevent keyword substitution or automatic category navigation.

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Specifically, any Boolean operator in the search box will turn of the automatic search expansion.  Be aware that includes things most people find useful, such as plural for singular, synonyms and the like.

[mostly_broncos]

With quotes around the keyword it didn't move the category. But it still hid lower subcategories that have items that should be returned  in the search. 

I still don't understand how to get best offer listings to come up without including auctions  it seems impossible to exclude these worthless auction with best offer enabled listings  that the site is littered with. 

The listing tool always tries to add that to my listings for some reason when I relist unsold items.

This gets to the heart of my primary complaint , Ebay doesn't respect parameters  I set  anywhere for more than a few attempts .  There should be ways to permanently turn off suggestions and idiotic random things  the site  does in both buying and selling .

The latest outrage the exciting new list your item abomination .   Optional for now but soon to be mandatory I'm sure.🙄 I tried it , and of course its awful ,now I don't want to see it ever again.

[mostly_broncos]

I use "face"  as a keyword while sitting in the US coins / half dollar  category   I know for a fact there are hits in every single subcategory but the results only show  hits in Kennedy , franklin, and walking liberty categories.   Ebay has hidden all results from the barber category and the mixed lots category  and hidden the categories themselves and all category trees that are accessible  on that screen can only be navigated upwards. That means there is no way to manually navigate to those categories at all without about 20 mouse clicks at which point I'll somehow have lost my list view in favor of the useless gallery view . The thumbnail size will change  , all listings will be defaulted to instead of buy now only and god knows what else I will have to fix.

I have experimented with logging into ebay Canada and ebay australia  and found many of the things I want still work why don't they work on the main site?

[mostly_broncos]

I should say , that a lot of searches work much better from the  advanced search form  as far as maintaining switches but after 3 or 4 tries it starts making changes to the parameters I set unless I go all the way back to the initial advanced search form.

Gallery view is a big offender there , I never ever want to see anything in gallery view or list view with large thumbnails that should be a global set and forget option  but it never stays set.