Bring back the search on TITLE ONLY! Sellers overload descriptions with SPAM

[itsjunk]

Bring back the search on TITLE ONLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sellers overload descriptions with SPAM words making a search USELESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

[lostnthecornpatches · Accepted solution]

itsjunk......  I AGREE ... TITLE ONLY or check a box and search description....which use to work great years ago ... if its not broke -- don't fix it...    but seller overload is not the only reason ebay search is trash ...  their search must also search the details of the listing...  the option boxes that a seller can check mark the square boxes for more details about their item... .. which brings up 1000's of listing that aren't what a buyer is looking for...  Apparently  ebay hasn't  realized how many Good Buyers they have Lost do to how their search works.... Which Hurts the people that Sell on ebay ... which in return -- hurts ebay..  and ebays fix for this...  for losing $$$$ ... is raise the fee's for what sellers we have left ... and they have lost a lot of great sellers that are now on social media sites selling like no other... with very low fee's or none..  i don't understand how such a large company can be so stupid...  But for some reason  EBAY NEVER - NEVER   listens to their sellers or buyers advise ...  i use to buy a lot of things on ebay ... but i don't anymore... way to many items come up in the search list that have nothing to do with what i typed in and searched ..   a lot don't even have 1 single word in the title that i searched... 

   so i buy from other online sites that have a Search that Works like it should ... and i don't have to scroll threw hundreds of crap that has nothing to do with the item i'm looking for... 

      i liked the old days ...  when the search WORKED FLAWLESSLY ....  you could search 1 word... and if there was to many results... you could add another word ..etc...  to narrow down ur search ---  and everything that was listed from ur search was items you were looking for.... if a seller made a mistake and spelled a word wrong...  their listing would not show up in ur search results  unless you spelled it wrong...   

                  i've sold on ebay since 1999 as a hobby & extra money.... but i'm seriously thinking about exploring other selling options... 

ebay hasn't listened to any seller or buyer advise - ideas - or opinions in years... and i doubt if they do.... anytime soon ...     lostniowa... LRD... 

[eburtonlab]

If the problem seems to be concentrated among a handful of sellers, you can exclude up to ten sellers directly from any individual search using the Advanced Search page.

More generally, if you can find keywords that the keyword-spamming sellers are using that are not related to what you are looking for, you may be able to exclude those keywords from your search, and thus exclude all sellers' items using those keywords from your results. Using an exclusion can affect keyword substitution and automatic category navigation, though.

[itsjunk]

Why go through all that trouble and research when the idiots at eBay could simply reinstate the title only search function? We should be able to control the parameters and not need to resort to trying to figure out what sellers and words to exclude. It would be a simple fix, but they want more results even if 90% of them are garbage. F eBay!

[itsjunk]

eBay sucks more and more each year. I have already stopped selling and soon will stop buying.

[eburtonlab]

Why go through all that trouble and research

I go through the trouble because a minute spent crafting a search can save me many minutes wading through unwanted search results, particularly on searches that I use over and over again. I may not bother for a one-off search unless there are a lot more results than I care to check.

Each user will have to decide individually how much time it is worth to spend creating a search versus the time spent scrolling through unwanted search results.

eBay could simply reinstate the title only search function

eBay could do a lot things.

Right now I can only use the actual things that eBay already does do, as opposed to the potential things that eBay could do.

[redmodelt]

I agree 100% with bring back title only search. I have gone through the process of setting up a saved search's for what I am looking for, at least 75% of what gets pulled for me to look at has 0% relevance to that search. 

Why is that you might ask, it is because those sellers are using the same specifics for EVERY listing they post! It sucks big time. 

[itsjunk]

you nailed it, plus the intentional mass blob of every spam word possible. If a seller could suck in the entire Webster's Dictionary into their description, they would in a heartbeat. Once again, F eBay!

[itsjunk]

no search can account for an intentionl mass of spam words. NONE!

[eburtonlab]

no search can account for an intentionl mass of spam words.

An exclusion term can remove any results with the excluded keyword. You just need to find one of the mass spam keywords that you are not interested in and exclude it from your search.

Many keyword spammers are lazy, and include the same grab bag of keywords in all their listings. You can use that against them to filter them out of your results.

For the worst offenders in any category, you can exclude up to ten sellers directly by username.

[ms.rodriguez*]

The ebay search by a picture is pretty bad too.  I needed to know the name of a particular Hot Wheels car. It was a fantasy car. I took a photo and hit search and got just about every green hot wheels on the site. None were the car that I was looking for.   I went to Google and used Google lens and I found my car and some other green cars.  The Google lens search is better.  The ebay photo search is aim at getting the searcher to buy any green car that shows up.  They do not care.  If Google to find the car on ebay and other sites around the world, the ebay photo search so do the same job too.

To me Ebay search is aimed at getting the searcher to buy whatever crap shows up.

[bja2409]

I'm searching for a Jet Star bicycle and multiple listing for car parts show up because of key word and part number spamming. 

Check out this listing that came up when searching for this bike, 295793556298 

Not only does it not pertain to the bike, he has multiple items post in the pictures gallery.

He is selling a shifter part but has pictures of oil cans, carburetors, pedals, hub caps, exhaust manifold and a radiator plus more .

If I buy the shifter, I should get all that is pictured!

BUT, I don't want that stuff. I want to search for a bicycle and shouldn't have to keep filtering out stuff to find it.

These car part guys do have alot of sales and I guess that is what ebay wants, even if their search engine is TERRIBLE!

[dogofwar777]

I stopped selling long ago. I usually buy from sellers I've bought from in the past.

[jice65]

It appears to no longer be possible to search title only. The check box to "include description" doesn't appear to have an effect. 

[eburtonlab]

I'm searching for a Jet Star bicycle and multiple listing for car parts show up because of key word and part number spamming.

Try this:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/7294/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=jet-star+&LH_TitleDesc=0