Listing Details and Ebay search tool

[morsno2004]

Good Morning -

Have been researching the best ways to list my items on Ebay Motors. All sorts of information in regards to best practices, but have not found what the search tool actually looks at. I sell used snowmobile parts, and feel that I could increase my sales with better listing techniques. My question is in regards to the listing details, and how they work with the search engine. Does the search tool take into account all of the listing details (title, category, item specifics), just the title, or other? 

Thanks, Larry

Mor Sno Parts

[eburtonlab · Accepted solution]

@morsno2004 

If you are asking about general searching, eBay's search will match search keywords to your title and item specifics. Users can select whether to search within the body of the item description, but the default is to not search the body of the description.

Whether search will match the category is a little more complicated; in some cases, eBay will use the search keywords to steer the search into a particular category -- items in other categories may not be shown. Listing in the "correct" category will have a big effect on visibility of your items. When in doubt, try searching the way a potential customer might, and see what category the search winds up in, if any.

eBay's help pages do not explain much of the detail of the workings of search and the "Search Expansion" features; to find those details you must turn to older pages located on other sites, such as this page on eBay Ireland:

https://www.ebay.ie/pages/help/search/search-commands.html

Search Expansion encompasses Keyword to Keyword substitution as well as Keyword to Category expansion (also known as "Implicit Category Navigation"). Keyword substitution allows a search for 1972 chevrolet to also find items listed as 72 chevy.

Those Search Expansion features can be disabled when searching by using search commands such as exclusion terms: widget -red, parenthetical "or" terms separated by commas: (left,right,center), or quotes around specific or multiple terms: "widget" or "New York City".

[corndog2]

In a nutshell, make sure to utilize Item Specifics. And using some of the same keywords as you have in the title and description, so much the better.

The first 3 words of your title are the most important, so use them to your best advantage.  For example, don't waste them on " Very nice colorful........."   State what the item is, model, etc. that would  bring it up in search.  And use all of the characters that Ebay allows. Don't worry that the title may not read as a regular sentence.  Just get the proper keywords and details out there. 

[morsno2004]

You confirmed what I thought in terms of how the search works. Did not however realize that searching the item description was an option. Sure do appreciate your insight. Searching as a potential customer might is a very good practice. That is how I figured out my listing procedures were flawed.

Thanks, Larry

[eburtonlab]

You are most welcome.

Titles and category are most important for keyword searches; item specifics are most important when potential buyers are searching using filters. Some of those filters depend on the category being searched as well.

The following link primarily deals with creating titles for catalog items, but many of the suggestions are useful for creating an effective listing title in general:

https://developer.ebay.com/devzone/merchant-products/catalog-best-practices/content/titles.html