Change In Ebay Search Algorithm

Ebay's search algorithm was always superior to Google's because it was specific for the keywords first and would also list potential similar items after the "exact" matches. Now you get everything in a random list and have to hope what you are actually searching for is near the top of the list.

lb23cavaliersmvp

2887 View listings

Posted 7 months ago·Last reply 7 months ago

7 comments

mozartbach1971

·7 months ago

51545 View listings

Sometimes when I search by lowest price I get only 160 items and when I do the same search with best match I get many more. Does anyone else experience this?

gurlcat

·7 months ago

1969 View listings

Yes, this is an observation that has been brought up here many times. I don't know if anybody has ever figured out why it's like that, but I do know I have seen the same thing on lots of shopping websites.

But here when you sort by anything other than Best Match, you do at least have the option of seeing more listings by clicking this:

Screen Shot 2026-01-02 at 8.06.11 PM.png

Now, those results will still be a bit less than the Best Match number, but I have no idea why.

I

eburtonlab

·7 months ago

5541 View listings

@mozartbach1971

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

gurlcat

·7 months ago

1969 View listings

eBay still offers a bazillion more ways to refine your search results than Google. If you're not using the left-screen refinements and top-right-screen sorting features, then it's not surprising if your results look really random.