@luckythewinner wrote:
@zamo-zuan wrote:
EBay's search can be figured out with experimentation. The problem is, they usually change how it works every month, or sometimes just weeks apart.
"Dolls" matches a category under "Dolls & Bears" and switches to the matching category "Dolls".
"Teddy Bear" matches a category under "Dolls & Bears > Bears", but it switches to the parent category of the matching category.
"Bears" matches a category under "Dolls & Bears", but does not switch to the matching category or the parent of the matching category.
Experimentation "figures out" nothing except what you experiement directly on ... which is not much help if you are listing hundreds or thousands of items.
And even when you do experiment, what you "figure out" often does not make much sense 🙂
Usually you can figure out key aspects of the categories you sell in, even Sellers Hub focuses on your most sold categories. Most sellers learning how their own items work can determine what's best to stay competitive.
It is true that it often does not make sense. That seems even more so since the new catalog began being rolled out. But it is still valuable to know how the searches work. You can take key aspects in to consideration. Dolls, for example, is a more focused result, meaning you can better focus on other item specifics. While "bears" is a much wider search, meaning that buyers are more likely to be attempting more searches. And knowing Bears matches the Dolls category, will tell you that if you are selling an item that is NOT a doll, you should focus on a better matching keyword.
But I should note, while it's good to know how your category works, the most important area to test in search is not the category, as much as the product identifiers. Which identifiers appear in search will help you to easily cover much more ground with your listing, which does give a boost to impressions.
This has more of a less of a difference depending on category, but in Motors it's integral. There's so many different aftermarket codes, you must stay on top of which product identifier fields are being weighed heavily in search, and make sure you have the high priority items there.
You could also use general search/SEO rules, tools, and strategies such as google trends, to get an idea of the most common searches people do. Of course the results will vary a bit from eBay, but it can help find a decent correlation of what the "masses" are searching for most right now. This helps get on top of trends as well, so you can find any that fit your products & edit them in to your identifiers for maximum exposure.
