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Ebay automatically puts a category on my searches. How do I turn this off?
Summary: awil5494 is experiencing issues with eBay search results being automatically filtered into specific categories, affecting visibility of relevant items. They discovered that changing the search category to "all" displayed the desired results. lisa5768 suggests saving preferred searches to avoid re-entering category settings each time, and advises aligning item listings with the default search category to increase visibility. They note that buyers typically search using keywords rather than browsing by category.
I noticed recently that I was getting no relevant search results when lookin g for specific items. All I was getting were hundreds of listing's for the same off brand knock off. However, under "related searches" (or whatever the heading is called) the exact item I wanted showed up - there is one for sale.
It took me some time but I realised it was because ebay was automatically filtering my results to a certain category. The correct item (the only item with the exact word I searched in the title anywhere on ebay) wasn't categorised I the way ebay categorised my search, and when I turned the category to "all" it showed up at the top of the page.
Can anyone tell me how to turn this off? It's massively impacting my search results ad makes me hesitant to sell on ebay in case my sales get filtered out by an arbitrary algorithm.
lisa5768
Mentor3 weeks ago · Edited@awil5494
If the eBay search default category is not what you want you need to change it each time you search if you are not using a saved search.
To save a specific search and category you look for often do the search then once the results come up there is a link to save this search at the top. You can use the saved search to get exactly the category you want for that item.
As to selling. It is best to look for the item in search and see what the default category comes up and then list your item to match. It may not be the perfect one but it is more likely to be seen. buyers don't browse by category they look at search results based on their key words.
awil5494
OP2 weeks agoThat's an interesting decision someone made there, can't see how it benefits ebay, buyers or sellers but I'll save that rant for another time!
Thanks for the helpful suggestion for searching. I'll give that a go!
For selling, you're right people search by key word so the fact category is automatically assigned would massively hamper that. I'll find other places to sell.