sellers ads with very large number of unrelated items makes searching impossible
Searching has become impossible for many categories because lazy sellers are including a laundry list of unrelated text in "superceeded part number", "Manufacturer part number" and "interchange part number" for each item.
There should be a search option to only search the title and nothing else.
For example the search for "1969 mustang power vent" returned over 2,100 items including a shop manual for a 1952 Ford Truck, Dodge Cufflinks, a can of Shell Lighter fluid, decals for "Gumout" and "LOCTITE" and "SIMONIZ" and a 1970 CHP inspection decal, 1962 Oregon License Plates, a check from "George Barris" and parts for a Model T Ford!
One seller had (I counted them) over 750 separate items including "welded", "wiring", every auto manufacturer in the USA including "Ford", "DeSoto", "Franklin", "Stutz" and the years "1910" thru "1977".
There is no way I can create a search that excludes over 700 unrelated terms and if I did it would exclude items I want to see.
tobaccocardyahoo
·6 months agoKeyword spamming is often a chicken and egg situations.
Some sellers become keyword spammers because the believe the search on the site fails to display their items because it is so bad.
Some sellers become keyword spammers because buyers for their items lack the appropriate vocabulary and intelligence to do an effective search.
Some sellers become keyword spammers because their friends or relatives who sell on sites with really bad search engines, like Etsy, tell them that this is the way you do things to get results.
The problem seems to be intense for auto parts, perhaps due to how people who do their own repairs have evolved, with some very sophisticated owners of classic vehicles, and some other buyers who cannot afford the costs of car repairs by professionals. Being mechanically inept, and not fond of heavy lifting, I am neither a buyer or a seller of these items. I lease my vehicles, and they are covered by their manufacturer for all repairs and maintenance.
bja2409
·6 months agoI sell auto parts among other things, keyword spamming does work. I copied a keyword spammer's listing and received triple the views and watchers, and the item sold faster than without keyword spamming. I just had a listing pulled for keyword spamming, then reported the same buyer I copied the listing of plus 11 of his other listing and ebay found nothing wrong with his listings. I think keyword spamming can be controlled by not letting hundreds of words be used for item specifics. Thanks for listening to my venting!
bja2409
·6 months agoThe answers you get from the "regulars" and experts on these forums will try to teach you how to do different types of searches. It's not the person searching for something that is the problem, IT'S EBAY! Ebay should not let so many characters be allowed in the item specifics fields. Car part sellers are the worst and nothing gets done. I reported car part sellers that had paragraphs of unrelated years and models of cars and parts and Ebay said they found nothing wrong with the listing. I shouldn't have to jump thru hoops just to find a simple item. Ebay is hurting buyers and themselves by letting so many characters be used in item specifics. i searched for a 1949 ford truck horn and a $20k pontiac hood shows in the results. I reported that listing and ebay said they found nothing wrong.
eburtonlab
·6 months ago@bja2409
i searched for a 1949 ford truck horn
Were you searching within the Horn category?
https://www.ebay.com/sch/262159/i.html?_nkw=1949+ford+truck+horn&LH_TitleDesc=0
I shouldn't have to jump thru hoops just to find a simple item.
Is changing the category considered "jump[ing] thru hoops"? It certainly is much easier to change the category than it is to try to get eBay to change how the search works, or to try to get all sellers to limit what keywords they put in item-specifics. Changing the category is much more effective and immediate, too.
eBay should crack down on sellers that spam item-specifics with unrelated keywords, and eBay should make it harder for such sellers to abuse their listings that way. By all means, encourage eBay to do that.
But until eBay actually does that, buyers should use the tools that eBay provides to make effective searches despite keyword spamming sellers.
bja2409
·6 months agoI was just using the 1949 ford horn as example. So there is a specific "horn" category? I must have missed the horn category. I have had buyers complain the my items was on page 4 of 1000's of results. Everyday buyers are not going to do the extra steps needed to find an item.
eburtonlab
·6 months agoEveryday buyers are not going to do the extra steps needed to find an item.
And yet buyers still find things to buy on eBay... every day.
Car & Truck Horns:
https://www.ebay.com/b/Car-Truck-Horns/262159/bn_7117881174
bja2409
·6 months agoonly 55,000+ results. 😂
mudshark61369
·7 months ago@69gt76b ,
"For example the search for "1969 mustang power vent" returned over 2,100 items".
Maybe if you did a better job of writing your search terms, you would get fewer and more relevant results. I did not recognize the term "power vent" so doing a search, the key words that were picked up by ebay were 1969 and Mustang.
When I saw your example search I could not figure out what a power vent was, and I've worked on classic cars since the early `60s when I worked on a used car lot. Thinking that your term was for vent windows I searched online using the term since I don't remember `69s having power vents or even power windows. It turns out I was right about no power windows/vents in Mustangs until 1971, but some Mustangs did have a "Comfort Stream Ventilation" system that was some times referred to as "Power Ventilation".
It turns out that it was a rare vacuum-operated option that used the heater's blower motor to force outside air through the center dash vents. So if yours isn't working I can think of 3 parts off hand, that might be the reason why. The vacuum switch on the heater plenum, Vacuum operated hot water shut off valve on the intake or the special lower motor for that option. The switch and valve being vacuum operated might fail because of cracked vacuum hoses, a bad switch / valve component, or the blower motor itself.
Before trying to find parts for that system you should try to find out what it is that needs to be replaced and find the part number, unless you're lucky and it turns out to be the vacuum hoses. If you have an original shop manual use the proper nomenclature when searching for the switch, valve or motor.
I'm glad I drive vintage Chevys.
69gt76b
OP7 months agoThe problem I and other people have is that even if you select "exact words, any order" and do NOT select "search description" it does not just search titles but also all of the manufacturer part numbers - the problem is many sellers include upwards of 1,000 items in their part numbers that have nothing to do with the actual item being sold - that is abuse of the item listing rules.
I was hoping someone would provide an answer that I overlooked to this problem.
What ebay should do is provide an option to "search only title" that would solve the problem.
Originally I provided a simple example of searches that fail it is not specific to "power vent" for example search for "1969 boss 302 mustang" you get over 6,800 results including "1973 1978 1979 FORD f150 F250 TRUCK AIR CLEANER ASSEMBLY 302 351 2BBL ALUMINUM" which clearly has nothing to do with the search terms I provided - that is because that listing has this as the "interchange part number":
60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75, 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969, 1970 1971 1972 1973 1975 1974 1976 1977 1978 1979, Mistang Cougar Falcon Fairlane Torino Ltd Galaxie, Mustang Galaxy Maurader 332 352 360 390 406 428, Fe Edsel Merxury Mercury Ford Projext Project Air Clwaner, Cleaner Filter Element Assembly Gt Boss Cyclone, 427 429 460 351 302 289 5.0 400 Fomoco, F100 F150 F250 F350 Ranger X Xl Xlt
and they misspelled several terms as well!
In this case I chose under "advanced search" the simple search for "1969 mustang power vent" and selected "exact words, any order" and did NOT select "search description too" - it returned 2,800+ results
I have a 1969 Mustang with the "power vent" option and was looking for parts and one part that showed up among the 2,800+ was item 185734081446: Mustang Heater Control Face Plate without A/C & with Power Vent 1969 1970
It also returned "ORIGINAL GM Chevy Corvair 1965-69 Monza Instrument Cluster Automatic 6" and "Mopar 440 030 FORGED TRW PISTON 7025P CHALLENGER DART DUSTER ROADRUNNER NICE"
eburtonlab
·7 months ago@69gt76b
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.
Try something like this as a starting point:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=1969+Mustang+power-vent&_sacat=6030&_sop=10
legacycoins
·7 months agoI agree 100%, adds all over the app and the desktop version make ebay look more like Yahoo, obviously them trying to force the promoted listings down our throat, I wasn't buying it before it was flashing in my face, now I am def not buying it.
It also amazes how terrible their picture search option is, I scan something and I get 1000 results of something not even remotely close to the item, I go to google lens, and it finds it right away, how is ebay so far behind with their image search when it has been perfected by google for so long
mygaragesale2012
·6 months agoShortage of funds. The CEO needs the money for another vacation home.
buyselljack2016
·7 months agoBeen a problem for a while.
Not sure how these clowns think they are helping themselves with all that keyword spamming.