Search keywords seem broken
Since about the beginning of the week ebay's search has been turning up way too many results for the terms I use when buying. In the postcard field many sellers use the tag RPPC to mean real photo postcard, but searching for that term now gives many useless results that don't use the term anywhere in their listing. One solution I have found is to put it in quotes ("RPPC" instead of RPPC). But as a seller who specializes in real photo postcards I'm worried that my buyers are going to have trouble finding the listings they are looking for.
Hopefully this is reversed soon!
3 comments
stevescho
·2 years agoIt's been doing that to me (too many search results returned, most not matching) for alot more than a week; I started about 4 months ago. Quotes helps, sometimes.
eburtonlab
·2 years agoLots of folks will likely agree with you that there are problems with eBay's search. Oddly, no two of them can seem to agree on what those problems are exactly, when they began, or what should be done about them.
There is more than one way to search. Don't assume your buyers are necessarily searching the same way you are, that they are seeing the same results you are, or that they are expecting to. Different users using exactly the same search keywords can have vastly different ideas of what results eBay should be delivering. eBay cannot make everyone happy under those conditions.
There are probably some things you can do when searching to get results that are more in line with what you expect; likewise there are things that your buyers can do.
If you are using "Best Match" as your default sort order, try another sort order if you are seeing "too many" results. Likewise if you are using "Lowest First" and seeing "too few" results.
Choosing good keywords can help with a search. Grouping keywords with dashes so that the keywords appear in order with no intervening keywords can be a useful technique.
Using quotes or exclusions should bypass any keyword substitutions or corrections and provide only exact, literal matches of your search. Keep in mind that eBay considers any listing with your keywords in the title or item-specifics to be a potential match.
I see 740,000+ results when searching RPPC in the Postcard category when sorting by "Newly Listed". Using quotes only reduces that number to about 720,000+ results. Using "Best Match" sort order produces over a million results, with or without quotes.
Choosing the proper keywords, changing the category if necessary, and then using appropriate filters should allow users to find what they are looking for and avoid things they are not -- under most circumstances.
monster-deals
·2 years agoNot unless they burn Cassini to the ground.