Search is increasingly dysfunctional: Truncates results to 160, finds junk, misses matches.

[apersay]

Regardless of how many matches I find on my initial search, if I then sort by price from low to high my results are truncated to 160 results. 

And add me to the list of people who are furious about unrelated items being found, Amazon pioneered that one and it's just as loathsome here.

And often when I search I find only a fraction of the items with an exact match. Often when I click on an item, I find related recommended items: but when I then search for keywords in the listing, neither that item nor others with the same keywords come up. 

I've been very careful to search all categories etc.

I wish Ebay would allow me to  find the items I want, not junk I don't.

It ain't rocket science. I feel like I'm being manipulated and short-change: just because I sort by low to high?

I'm starting to associate Ebay with very negative feelings.

[threeblindmice18]

 Ebay wants to be Amazon. I shouldn't be surprised they copy-catted this nightmare search plan too. They have to correct this soon. Can you imagine how much sales have dropped in the last couple of days? I'm a seller and very worried about the loss of holiday sales if they don't fix this soon. I started a conversation about the search issues yesterday. Some people are very frustrated  and others just don't get it and keep trying to convince us this has always been like this or we are searching incorrectly!

[eburtonlab]

The "Price plus shipping: lowest first" sort order provides filtered results -- often drastically filtered. And the option to "see more results" may not always be shown as it should. The filtering may vary depending on the keywords used.

If you encounter a drastically filtered result for a keyword search using a desktop browser, you should be able to use the "Feedback" link in the lower right corner of the search results to provide feedback on your search to eBay developers. The more users provide info, the more likely something is to be done about the over-filtration problem.

You can avoid that problem entirely by using a different sort order.

If you have few results, try sorting by "highest first", then starting at the end of the results, scroll up instead of down. This also avoids the problem of variation listings with low-cost variations appearing at the top of the lowest-first sort.

If you have a bookmarked or saved lowest-first search that you use a lot, you can avoid the filtration by adding the following to the end of the search URL, then saving the resulting search:

&_blrs=recall_filtering

If a search returns results that do not appear to contain your chosen keywords in the titles or item-specifics, try putting one of your search keywords in quotes.

Using quotes around one of your search keywords forces eBay to avoid any keyword substitutions or corrections and search for literal matches only.

[hdod7267]

Adding quotes will work but it fails to address the problem... most users/BUYERS do not know many of these search tricks. 

4th quarter is not the time to be testing these changes

If buyers don't instantly get what they want on a simple search they will just go elsewhere

[deltilogical]

"Using quotes around one of your search keywords forces eBay to avoid any keyword substitutions or corrections and search for literal matches only."

this doesn't always work, especially if you are searching your own listings or use a filter.

[therogue-trader]

"4th quarter is not the time to be testing these changes"

This isn't a recent change, this has been issue for several months.  I noticed it way back.

[eburtonlab]

Adding quotes will work but it fails to address the problem... most users/BUYERS do not know many of these search tricks.

If you want eBay to fix it, you need to report the problem directly to eBay.

[tobaccocardyahoo]

The Amazon A9 search has always applied AI to its results. The order and number of results are based in part to what previous buyers who did the search bought, and the success of the transaction.

As you may have read in the press, AI is taking over the world.

If 120 of 160 results are relevant, that is enough for me as a buyer.

[eburtonlab]

If 120 of 160 results are relevant, that is enough for me as a buyer.

What are the chances that in any given search, that only exactly 160 results out of possibly many thousands (or even millions) are "relevant"?

One user in another thread provided an example of a search using the keyword postcard that turned up eight million results, but only 160 results when sorted by "Price plus shipping: lowest first", with no "streamlining" message and no link to see further results. Not sure how AI can conclusively determine that 99.99+% of results are not relevant based on a single general keyword.

Given the not insignificant possibility that eBay's search may be misfiring -- in at least some cases -- many users would prefer the option to decide for themselves what is "relevant", or at least to have some indication that the results are being filtered and a to have way to undo the filtering, if desired. But that option may not be available at all without resorting to a workaround.

[threeblindmice18]

100% agree

[threeblindmice18]

The average customer does not know all of this or won't be bothered. They will go somewhere else. This is supposed to be an enjoyable experience, not a frustrating exercise of what do I know, how much do I remember, what combo  puts it all together and just forget about finding the least expensive option. Also, many of these do not work. Maybe at some point they did but not anymore. The rules have changed and continue to evolve daily.

[eburtonlab]

The average customer does not know all of this or won't be bothered. They will go somewhere else.

You should be telling that to eBay. Only eBay can do something about that.