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Why won't Ebay offer a "Search Titles Only" option like Craigslist?
I am getting really frustrated with Ebay searches. Many sellers have hundreds of "keywords" in their description that have NOTHING to do with the item they are selling, but because my search words are also in their "keywords," my search results are absolutely bloated with hundreds, sometimes thousands of irrelevant results, and I have to wade through to find what I am actually looking for. Ebay...why can't you simply offer a "Search Titles Only" option like Craigslist does? It's not hard to do. Sign me, FRUSTRATED
3 comments
eburtonlab
Mentor8 months ago@illuminance72
eBay used to allow searching by title only, but that was before eBay began using "item-specifics" and associated filter options to allow users to narrow searches. Now searches by default are title and item-specifics, with the option to search the entire description.
Only eBay can answer why eBay does not penalize sellers for keyword spamming, or why eBay does not limit the size of item-specific fields to prevent long lists of unrelated keywords from being included by unscrupulous sellers. Automotive listings are notorious due to some sellers including lists of every possible make, model and year in the item specifics of their listings to ensure those listings appear in the maximum number of searches.
Despite that, it is still possible to search eBay and avoid keyword-spammed listings. The narrower the search, the easier it is to avoid unrelated listings; simply choosing the right category can filter out vast numbers of unrelated results. But even in a very general search of all categories, there are some techniques that can be used to filter out listings with spam keywords.
Some general techniques: choosing appropriate keywords, grouping keywords together with dashes to find those keywords in order with no intervening keywords, excluding an unrelated keyword likely to appear on a spam list, choosing a particular category or subcategory, and using category-specific filter options.
If you have an example of a search that you are having trouble with, someone may be able to suggest some simple search modifications to get better results or even provide some actual search link examples.
illuminance72
OP8 months agoI appreciate the reply. To me, Ebay needs to de-list auctions that have these keyword spammers, and close these sellers' accounts. Yes, I am a buyer/seller of automotive parts. I recently searched for a specific part that returned 275 results, out of which 6 were relevant. My question is, why won't Ebay offer this? Gotta believe there are many like me who are sick of this.
eburtonlab
Mentor8 months agoYou would have to ask eBay why eBay does what eBay does, or hasn't done what it hasn't done.
What search were you doing? There are probably some simple things you can do to make the search work better for you without waiting for eBay to change the way the search works or getting keyword spammers to stop doing what they are doing.
Such as: try picking a random make, model or year that has absolutely nothing to do with what you are searching for, and exclude that from your search. Any keyword spammed listing with that keyword will be removed from your search.