Is there some covert reason we still have such a lousy character allotment for listing titles???
They raised the limit on number of photos, enabled videos, even raised the bleepin' feedback comment characters, so why ... oh WHY... are they still such tightwads with listing titles? -And you know, very often the answer to why eBay does or doesn't do something is because Amazon does or doesn't do it, and lord knows eBay gotta keep up with the Jones'es .... er, Bezos'es.
............. But with this one rare exception, apparently. I avoid the dumb river so I guess I didn't know about this, but jeez louise -just LOOK at the dadgum 19th Century novel titles they get to write over there! I wouldn't even expect an allotment THAT high, but so often I have to sit and make painful Sophie's Choice decisions between only a couple of words that I feel are equally important to include. The addition of 10 measly characters would be so helpful. I mean, 100 total would feel like Christmas.
So why the heck has this lousy 80 been the law of the land for so long? Any theories? Could it be as lame as holding out for the tiny handful of sellers willing to pay extra for the stupid sub-title or whatever it's called (do they even still offer that?)
lakefor94
·1 year agoAlways bumping the 80. 10 more would help me quite a bit. 20 would be the cat's meow.
gurlcat
OP1 year agoWhat categories are you in?
ekmadonna
·1 year agoBook Category definitely needs more for sure.
gurlcat
OP1 year agoOmg, YES. I haven't listed any books in a while but the memory is coming back to me now. 80 characters is often insufficient just for the author and title alone, never mind edition #, cover type, "illustrated", etc.
EDIT: But at least the Item Specifics menus are really good for books, if memory serves.
go-bad-chicken
·1 year agoYep ^^^^^THIS!^^^^^^
The Lord Of Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien 3 Vol Set The Fellowship Of The Ring, The Two Towers, The Return Of The King Signed True First Edition 1954 1955 London George Allen & Unwin Hardcover
gurlcat
OP1 year agoBrace yourself for a lecture about why you don't need all of those terms for that item. 🤣
krazzykats
·1 year agoWaste of space the word "the" used 6 times = 18 characters, the word "of" used 3 times = 6 characters for a total of 24 characters.
How about simply:
"The Lord of Rings Tolkien 3 Vol Set Fellowship Two Towers Return of the King Signed 1st Ed HC"?
Not a lecture, just an observation. 😎
mam98031
·1 year agoJust as a reminder, the Ebay search engine searches the Title AND the ISBs [item specific boxes]. So you don't have to try and cram everything into the title. 1st Edition and HC [hardcover] could be in the ISBs.
bandrhome
·1 year agoAmazon and Etsy have too many... Less is more.
gurlcat
OP1 year ago.... in your opinion (I understand why someone with a "less is more" catch phrase mindset would leave out "in my opinion", as it literally adds "more").
bandrhome
·1 year agoYou know, you could have just skipped 'my opinion' and sorry I didnt spell out 'in my opinion' for you.
gurlcat
OP1 year agoOf course. But on the other hand, you couldn't have just skipped replying to a thread just to offer an unsolicited and vague opinion, huh?
gurlcat
OP1 year agoAlmost everyone in the replies doesn't seem to understand what my concern is. It appears that most here are thinking about "shoppers" searching for "products". That is magnitudes of difference from the kind of buyers that make up the bulk of MY buyer base. Yall are talking about people stepping inside Walmart because they're out of shampoo, or at best maybe people who go to Goodwill hoping to find a decent pre-owned blender. I am talking about a whole other animal, one who MIGHT sometimes buy my categories by knowing where to look, but just as likely might buy them because they found them on accident. I have to title for the Walmart/Goodwill people AND for the type who, on their way to Walmart or Goodwill will swerve to park for a garage sale, with nothing in mind beyond "Ooo I hope they have jewelry."
What I am tasked with is not only trying to state what qualities people look for because they want it; I must also make people want qualities they didn't realize they wanted until they saw it. And yes photos do a lot of that leg work, which is why I put so much effort into them. But not everything is apparent in photos; sometimes words are the allure, which any ad writer knows.
Jewelry is extremely hard to title, in terms of anticipating what could even get the listing to show in search results, because the buyers have such a vast spectrum of reasons for even looking at it, let alone buying it. Some are expert collectors, some just casual wearers drawn to "pretty" regardless of what makes it pretty, and a lot of my buyers are resellers themselves. If a piece is signed (branded) that CAN make a huge difference, but not necessarily.
Here's an example, not of the character restriction problem (I used only 68 including words that weren't even necessary like "with" and "Center"), but an example of the mind-reading conundrum for this category, and how the character limit COULD have made it worse. This piece sold really fast earlier this month, in under a day if I recall. I probably underpriced it because of the very fact that it's unsigned. I usually leave that fact out of the title, but this time (for the first time ever) I decided to include "Unsigned Beauty" because it is a term used a lot in vintage jewelry circles. But did my buyer use that term in search, or was she even familiar with it? Is she even a vintage jewelry enthusiast or was she just looking for green jewelry because it was March 2nd and she wanted something pretty to wear on St. Patty's day? Is she a reseller and didn't use any search terms at all, just went to Jewelry>Vintage>brooches, and sorted by Newly Listed? If so, would she be less likely to even click if I hadn't included "Jumbo" because brooches like this are usually smaller?
And you know, if I'd hoped to sell this piece for more money (thus worth harder thinking) I would have included "brass" in the title, because that is another keyword that some collectors use. And if this had been a true antique it would have the kind of clasp worth stating in the title (C-Clasp or Trombone Clasp), because that's a HUGE factor for collectors, and yet clasp type isn't even an Item Specific for brooch listings! I wish I were joking or lying but it's true! Oh and if any of the stones were 'Aurora Borealis', that's not a color choice in the IS menus either, so that would have to go in the title, or at least 'AB' which sellers tend to use, even though casual buyers probably have no idea what it means, but if we had the wiggle room to write the full term it would make immediate sense, and probably add extra enticement. This piece could also have been a necklace/pendant combo -another must-have title term.
I could go on and on, but suffice it to say 80 characters may suffice for 'TreSemme Moisture Rich Shampoo 28 Fl. Oz." and all this talk about search optimization statistics may apply just fine to something like that, but it does not apply to everything. I guarantee whoever has authored such facts did not assess everything, probably didn't even consider assessing lots of things.
toomuchstuffagain35
·1 year agoebay has never been fond of sellers using 'marketing' (possibly because they're not too good at it themselves).
gurlcat
OP1 year agoCan you expand on this a bit? Like what do you mean and how do you know it?
fbusoni
·1 year ago@gurlcat
OK... I see what you are driving at.
You are thinking WAY outside the proverbial box... and like an artist (not a technocrat) to boot.
And yes, for your category (jewelry) I can certainly see the need for some "artistic license" in terms of title length.
Your title for the brooch above was borderline delicious -- I actually enjoyed reading it, believe it or not. Perhaps it was the fact that almost all the words are more or less the same number of characters? I cannot put my finger on it... perhaps the title juxtaposed with that close up photo is what appeals to me. I might well have clicked on the listing out of pure curiousity.
(When I started my career as a writer with the USG back in the late 1970s, we were actually allowed the sort of "artist license" to which I refer above. I customarily penned entire paragraphs that were comprised of a single sentence, for example. There was no word limit placed on written analysis. One really needed a good grounding in English grammar to make sense of my prose, but back in those days, that was not a problem for our readers. After 9/11, everything changed: the intel community as a whole was forced to adopt a highly simplistic, almost rote fourth-grade level compositional technique for everything put to paper. It was an utter disaster and the inability to write creatively led many to resign. )
chapeau-noir
·1 year agoI was a tech writer in industry (mostly energy and engineering) back in the day and it was a requirement to write simply and in a straightforward manner at about the 8th grade level. When I moved into tech documentation and manual writing later, the requirements were the same.
gurlcat
OP1 year agoYall are giving me depressing flashbacks to biology grad school, of which I dropped out of after 1 year and lots of debt, largely because of how soul-crushing the required writing is for science journal articles. @fbusoni I think I already told you about this.
@chapeau-noir Having to stick to "simple and straightforward, 8th grade" sounds stifling for sure -this was the opposite, but likewise painful. Basically you must write in such a way that seems geared toward making reading it too challenging, and I don't mean for 8th graders but even highly literate adults.
In fact, I almost said "laypersons" but that's not quite sufficient, because science has so much vocabulary never used in day-to-day speech so of course that alone would make the reading hard for lay comprehension. But that warrants no apologies; science articles should use science vocabulary since it's meant for peers, and if anyone wants to "translate" for more pedestrian publications they can do that. But I'm telling you, the writing style goes way beyond that kind of "hard"; it seems like a clique p!ssing match to use as many 'big' words as possible, even for NON-science ones, ones that have perfectly simple synonyms! Like I guarantee every scientist has a thesaurus dot com tab open every time they write.
It also requires you to break basic English literary no-no's, like writing in the passive. You can't write "We" or "I" -you must describe procedural steps as if you don't know who performed them, or maybe they just performed themselves. 🤣
And if all that wasn't bad enough ... okay maybe ... MAYBE ... I could have learned to adjust if I'd had a different advisor. But what I had was a reptile scientist with a tiny reptile heart, from Italy, whose English was very good but far from native, yet there she was demanding constant re-writes, usually with the only suggestion of writing "more professionally." OMG I should have reconsidered my path when, before my first semester even started, she made me re-write my OWN introductory self-description, to put on her grad students' page of her website!
chapeau-noir
·1 year agoOnce I realised what I needed to do and pondered it, I didn't find it extremely difficult to write in such a simple manner. IMHO anything can be rendered simply if one really knows their subject, and that includes specialist subjects, though that will of course use specialist language - as you mentioned, not for lay persons but still clear and straightforward. I actually have no pretense to creative writing skills - I just write sports fiction now.
It's just interesting the requirements and parameters different occupations have for writing and how they change down through the years.
gurlcat
OP1 year agoHa I don't know what you're smoking to see art in that title, but thank youâ£ï¸
Now I'm just slightly annoyed to see that I forgot to include my usual message for the Condition box: 'He who clicks Full Description can read what he might regret not reading' Confucius 485 BC.
But I am proud of that photo. It honestly captured the surface scratches, simultaneously showing that I don't try to hide anything but that the scratches are quite tiny and shallow, not bad for a big flat table of crystal that has ridden helplessly on the chests of humans out and about in the world, who-knows-how-many-times over nearly a century, as opposed to the privileged sessile lifestyle of a vase in a cabinet or whatever. (LOL speaking of obscure science vocab, the spellchecker here doesn't think 'sessile' is a real word 🤣)
But the chef's kiss is that rainbow facet, to show that it's crystal and not just glass. That is something I will spend a ridiculous amount of time to capture, although it's easy with big ole' honkin' facets like this.
Note the item in the Amazon listings I posted in the OP. I ordered one (HERE of course, not there, and way cheaper despite (or because?) being from the lens company's own eBay store!). I think I told you how abysmal my new iphone (13) is at macro photography, so hopefully the clip-on lens will work as well as advertised!
krazzykats
·1 year agoI'd be more concerned about titles that would be two lines long taking up more display space and spamming searches with junk words.
All the necessary important information should be within the first 80 characters in the title.
á“šá˜á—¢
jonathanbrightlight
·1 year agoI can't say I've never wanted more characters, but I can only imagine what a mess many sellers would make of their titles with even more room to work. There's trade-offs to every approach.
johnrj1226
·1 year agoWonder what percentage of eBay sellers run out of space in the title box.
iamalwaysright
·1 year agoBecause most people don’t want to see the words “WOW†or “LQQK†in a listing title.
gurlcat
OP1 year agoAre you asserting that's what I want to include in my titles? Why the rudeness?
toomuchstuffagain35
·1 year agoDoubt it was aimed at you as I don't think you're the type to do that = )
But honestly, think of the way the IS are spammed by irrelevant words now. and think what the titles from those sellers would end up like.
gurlcat
OP1 year agoAlright I'm doing it. I am thinking of it right now ... visualizing it like a real image in front of my eyes .... eyes commencing to roll a little bit ..... Ooo! okay this one is actually funny .... Ha, that one too ..... eyes rolling again ..... but ....... that's all. No sky falling. In fact as long as the silly titles include what I'm looking for I might buy them. And if they're so silly it makes me not trust the seller, that would be THEIR problem, not a problem for the whole of eBay.
So what am I failing to picture? What HARM would come from wasted characters that is so bad it outweighs the benefit of available characters, for items that need them?
tobaccocardyahoo
·1 year agoBecause 80 characters has plenty of room for spamming the title after the Product Name is provided.
Most of the spam is never included in a potential buyer's search and reduces the impact of the title when seen in the search results, reducing click throughs.
simply-the-best-for-you
·1 year agoI sell in Clothing & I'm more than fine with 80. Keep in mind that even with 80, only the first 55 are used by Google. I can't recall the exact limitation right now b/c I just woke up, but I know Best Practices inlcude the first 55ish having the most important info & it has something to do with Google. Honestly, I think 80 is overkill, though I manage to use them all, but that's prolly cuz I've been on here since 96 & to me, having the 80 is brand new. No old timers have commented, other than Chap, wasn't it 15 characters back in the mid 90's or am I imagining that?
ETA; I will add that my listing tool tells me how many characters I'm over, when I'm over & it's rarely >2.
jbbowers12012
·1 year agoHi, We here in N.J. think that 80 title characters is quite sufficent. Though there are times when maybe "one more" would be nice.
nyr134
·1 year ago@gurlcat : As you say, the category often determines how many characters are needed. I sell mainly in the collectables group and usually old paper, so primarily what I need in the title is what the publication is called, who produced it (e.g., Chrysler, Dupont), what it is - booklet, brochure, catalog - and a date. Most of the time I am well under the 80 character limit and I've got a clean, easy-to-read title. But I fully understand different needs for jewelry and apparel, like you mention.
gurlcat
OP1 year agoThank you for acknowledging that, how (maybe) most items basically title themselves but that is not true of all items. Honestly I'm pretty disappointed in how much tunnel vision is in the bulk of these other replies, especially considering not all of these people have been so anti-increase for title characters in the past (not saying any names though). 😉
ittybitnot
·1 year ago@gurlcat
I think @fbusoni is on the right track when mentioning SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Issues. Google, has always had suggestions over the years, and you may have heard of them from time to time. But they always are changing. For example, years ago Google Ranking favored 'descriptions' written in bullet point form. Now, they favor more normal sounding language that include paragraphs with lead in sentences and phrases that sound more like the spoken word.
Another example would be the "white background" issue. While eBay's search engine may still rank photos with only a white background higher in results, it is no longer a requirement of Google. There are other listing practices that were once considered good ones, that no longer are favored and have been replaced.
I have a (handy free) SEO checker on my website that monitors such things as I am preparing the listing i.e. is this too long, is this too short, adding alt text to photos etc. Somewhere over the last few months I noticed that I could increase my "character count" in the title from what was allowed previously. I never took note of "how many" characters are allowed as far as number exactly, but if it would be beneficial I can try to count when the opportunity arises. It seems a tedious exercise.
Here is the link to what appears to be the latest Google SEO for beginners. More in-depth examples can be found as well. eBay's ideas, of course, may be different.
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide
gurlcat
OP1 year agoWait, how can I do that? I just did some listings last night and was definitely limited to 80, like always.
ittybitnot
·1 year agoWait, how can I do that? I just did some listings last night and was definitely limited to 80, like always.
@gurlcat
You sell on eBay. The character limit is set by eBay. The ability to type in the 'title box' ends for you after 80 characters.
In my situation I can keep typing as much as I want. I am shown a graphic of sorts that lets me know I have exceeded the limit for appropriate SEO guidelines. I am given other information about my title i.e. if I have used the first few words already in another one, and things of that sort.
gurlcat
OP1 year agoSorry I am still not clear. I don't know what you mean by "situation." I thought you did sell on eBay -you're often talking about the auto-pay thing, etc.
chevymontecarlo88
·1 year agoThe titles should be limited and should highlight (keywords) what you are selling. The description box is there to elaborate on what you are selling.
If you have items that are generally available/listed on eBay, check comp sales for ideas of what titles (length/words) have worked for others. Your titles look good.
Very rarely do you see books with runaway titles.
johnrj1226
·1 year ago@gurlcat
Fewer key words in the title makes easier searching for shoppers, aka potentiate buyers and more views - watch - sales for the sellers. Guarantee eBays search engine ain't what Amazon is - eBay's search engine was a disaster when they changed from Google to some lightweight outfit. Sellers had to revise all their listings 3 different times to make it compatible with the newer search engine's objectives (aka a real F U B A R) - "Use keywords correctly, take high quality images, make your listings accessible, specify the correct item category, fill in eBay's unique identifiers."
You have plenty of room in the description box to all the writing you wish. Hint: It should be concise and to the point. Buyers don't want to read copy as long as 1/2 of "Gone With The Wind" in paper back or the Gideon that used to be in all hotel/motels rooms in the 60's & 70's. Never stole one or opened the cover. (front or back).
PS: I was a fortunate one - only had about 100 active listings - felt sorry for all those mega listing peddlers
fbusoni
·1 year ago@gurlcat
I think it all gets down to search engine optimization. For eBay's search engine, and for Google's. Less is definitely more in this context.
I recall reading a long time ago that 60 characters is the industry standard. You will rarely see a newspaper headline that exceeds 60, for example.
Ironically, the limitation to 80 characters shows that it is technically possible to restrict the length of text fields (has been for decades).
Why eBay does not do this for many of its specialized descriptor fields, where sellers can inject hundreds of words having nothing to do with the item in question, is curious to me. If eBay did so, it would make eBay's own internal search far more efficient.
The folks who list on Amazon and use absurdly long titles are not helping themselves (even though they think they are), although in Amazon's case I strongly suspect that AI is used to pare down the gibberish and leave the essentials.
krazzykats
·1 year agoThe 60-line character standard is related to the ASCII code, which was created in 1963 by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
The standard of 60 lines may have been influenced by the physical limitations of early terminals and the need to display text without wrapping.
In typing class (late 1960s), we would set the margins to make a typed line of text word wrap at 60 characters.
simply-the-best-for-you
·1 year ago@krazzykats Perhaps that is where it stems from, not sure what languages are in use at eBay, but most coding for Fortune 100 co's, uses EBCDIC, not ASCII. Can't speak to eBay specifically though.
tobaccocardyahoo
·1 year agoSome in their post referred to EBCDIC it was no more related to field sizes than ASCII or ANSI.
It was the major code used for characters on mainframes and did not really migrate to PCs or to ARPANET or the Internet.
When Ebay was created both computer memory and hard disks were smaller and more expensive than they are today, and wasting them for self-indulgent purposes was not going to happen.
krazzykats
·1 year agoascii_evolution-of-character-codes.pdf
That is simply a pdf of "The Evolution of Character Codes, 1874-1968" by Eric Fischer
With no ads.
gurlcat
OP1 year agoIt really depends on the item category I think. There are lots of things I have sold that are easily describable with less than 80, especially if their item specific menus are WELL-populated with the appropriate choices, then there is zero concern about connecting with what those buyers are looking for.
But other categories -jewelry and apparel being prime examples - where many important descriptors come into play, namely vocabulary that merchants and customers are familiar with ... but eBay is totally clueless about, so they're not in the item specifics menus, and instead a bunch of useless stuff is. Like umpteen different IS's about diamonds whether your piece has diamonds or not.
@chapeau-noirI think you and I talked about that problem in apparel not too long ago, like how they seemed to pull the IS options from early 20th century sewing books or something, while lacking so much of the terminology that is used in modern fashion. It's even worse with jewelry, because so many of the 'buzz' descriptors for both modern AND vintage jewelry are totally missing.
So that's why I so frequently feel the need to max out the character limit and still have to leave out important terms. It's fine if anyone disagrees -if there were more characters nobody would have to use them all.
chapeau-noir
·1 year ago@gurlcatThere's no doubt that it can be challenging, particularly since eBay's taxonomists didn't seem to see fit to consult ANYONE in the apparel (and probably jewellery) industry. Poshmark has 80 character limit, also, but they mitigate this a bit with tags (their categories are even worse than eBay and nothing any of we sellers there can say changes their minds) - they don't have IS's, though.
gurlcat
OP1 year agoI don't think I've ever had a nightmare about online selling, but from what all bits I've noticed and heard about Posh, it's like it checks all the things that would make this (rather fun) business the total opposite for me. 🤣 I don't know how you do it. In fact I'm curious; is there something about it you like, or is it just more eyes and more sales as a result?
chapeau-noir
·1 year agoIt's a bit like digging in hard dirt because it's social media selling, but I've been selling there for ? 5 or 6 years and it's fine.
ekmadonna
·1 year agoAgree 110%
toysaver
·1 year agoIt's limited because it's valuable online real estate. You can get a subtitle that basically is an extension, but you have to pay for the privilege.
chapeau-noir
·1 year agoYeah, and that subtitle is like at Tokyo real estate prices! 😖
As far as I'm concerned - using the 'condition' box is a better deal for getting a bit more info up in front of people (who read, that is).
slippinjimmy
·1 year agoSub-Titles are not searchable, note that eBay says "appear in search results" by that they mean it's viewable in search results, they do not mean that keywords included in a Sub-Title are indexed for Search.
chapeau-noir
·1 year agoWhen I started in 2001 I think it was 40?
simply-the-best-for-you
·1 year agoI think it was 15 when I first started on eBay. We only just jumped to 80 a few years ago, but that's more than enough. I don't want it to go higher b/c if it does, the Search Results will look as messy, cluttered & ugly as AMZN does.
chapeau-noir
·1 year agoIMHO 80+ characters would just lead to keyword stuffing, and even 80 is really more than enough.
gwenscupboard
·1 year agoI agree. Besides, most people don't read more than a few words in the title. In the OP I read like 6 words in those titles and passed over the rest (I don't have ADD either).
bashort
·1 year agoI think that 80 is plenty, I see no need for the words insects, and plants when it is a camera lens.
Also the item specifics show up in search as well as the title which I also think is not a great idea as implemented by ebay
buyselljack2016
·1 year agoTo hold back the long-winded🤣 (and yup, to make some extra coin)
nobody*s_perfect
·1 year agoBut they DID increase the allotment of spaces for listing titles! It's 80 characters now, but it used to be just 55 and IIRC originally it was 40.
biggymoe
·1 year agoYeah, and there was widespread rejoicing when it was increased to 80. I find 80 to be adequate, the majority of the time. Occasionally I have needed a couple more, but............
slippinjimmy
·1 year agoI don't remember 40 but that may have in the very early days, I do remember that 55 was tough but when it went to 80 many times I had a hard time using all that were available.
pargran3
·1 year agoI seem to remember 35 when I started way back, but not sure if my memory would retain that bit of trivia. Of course that was when a dog chewed slipper would sell. Oh well.
Nothing except the name eBay is the same as way back.
nobody*s_perfect
·1 year agoYes, alas, the lucrative market for used footwear has been shut down.
simply-the-best-for-you
·1 year ago@pargran3 When did you start? I seem to remember it being 15 originally. Am I losing my mind? This was 96.
iamalwaysright
·1 year agoWay back in the 60’s it used to be only 10 characters. And we’d all have to walk uphill barefoot in the snow to get those characters. Seriously, all you kids and your rock n roll are all spoiled these days.
simply-the-best-for-you
·1 year ago@nobody*s_perfect When did you join? I remember you from way back when, but for some reason, I thought it was 15 when I started in 96.
mam98031
·1 year agoI agree. We just need to use the 80 characters in a smart fashion. Words that buyer are likely to search by.
Using subtitles is expensive, especially for lower value items. Instead of subtitles, I would encourage the use of the ISBs [item specific boxes] as the info in them is also included when a member does a search. So no need to pay for that subtitle. Just use the ISBs and add the boxes you need.