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Why won't eBay enforce its keyword spamming policy as written?
Summary: The discussion revolves around dissatisfaction with eBay's current search functionality, specifically regarding keyword spamming. ralf-who expresses frustration with irrelevant search results due to keyword stuffing in listings and suggests bringing back the 'Search Titles Only' feature, even offering to pay for it. eburtonlab responds by comparing the current search results with past functionality, while another participant highlights how keyword spamming is common across various platforms like Etsy. The overall sentiment is that eBay's search experience was more user-friendly in the past, and there is a call for stricter enforcement of keyword policies.
I'm not expecting this post to be productive and there will be plenty of respondents that will say this issue is so unimportant that they will dismiss it out of hand but I'm going to ask the question anyway.
Why won't eBay enforce its own keyword spamming policy?
The policy is very clearly written when it comes to the specifics of the issue I'm referring to. The keyword spamming is ruining search results in the category and reporting the offending listings doesn't seem to make any difference.
Apparently the customer service personnel that do the reviewing either don't seem to understand their own policies or "interpret" the violations in a very "relaxed' manner (and "relaxed" is being generous).
Example: Say you want to do a title search in Slot Cars/HO Scale and you want to search for a specific manufacturer in the title of the listings. There are many manufacturers that produced and still produce products that are similar and are "compatible" (i.e. one manufacturer's cars will function on another manufacturer's tracks). Listings will simply contain a string of manufacturers names in the title because the person creating the listing thinks that, because there are compatibilities, this is allowed and of course it is not because it ruins the search function which is the point of eBay's policy to begin with.
The policy is written specifically to say that any compatibilities don't go in the title but rather in the description and that the words "works with" or "compatible with" must be included before listing other manufacturers or their products in the listing. The title of the listing can only refer directly to the item listed.
Apparently, those reviewing the offending listings are doing the title review with only an expectation of "related item" in mind and that's not following the policy as written. It appears that, as long as the listing title contains "related" manufacturers, they'll allow the keyword spamming even though the search function remains broken.
I would be interested to know what eBay customer reps think of this glaring discrepancy and the fact that they are allowing their search function to remain broken.
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tobaccocardyahoo
·2 months agoThere are many sellers who have their listings on multiple sites, including Ebay.
Survival on some of these other sites, like Etsy, is only possible with keyword spamming. I do not think Ebay would like to remove all of the Etsy sellers, or the sellers who have followed the advice of their Etsy selling friends and relatives to spam keywords.
I know Etsy sellers who spend all of their spare time adding keywords to their listings.
Ebay probably needs to suppress keywords much of the time.
ralf-who
·2 months agoI'm with you, ralphx65. Using EBAY's search function was a whole lot more 'buyer friendly' 20+ years ago. Perhaps when EBAY was basically no more that an online garage sale.
eburtonlab
·2 months agoSome things were easier -- such as using wildcards.
The search syntax for choosing m out of n keywords by using @(m-1) was not buyer friendly.
Anyone remember using searches like car* -cartr* @2 red white blue green black ?
rippets
·2 years agoYou are correct, it is annoying.
As far as reporting sellers, I understand that most (if not all) reported listings are now "handled" by AI rather than a human. AI uses bots to find keywords and does not remove offending violators in many instances.
There are about 1.8 Billion items listed on eBay on any given day. Can you imagine how many humans it would take to keep track and follow up on just the violations of which you speak.
EBay customer service reps would probably not be able to give you any kind of opinion of eBay's policies and procedures. CS reps are generally not knowledgable about eBay's policies. For the most part (but not always), they read from a script and tell callers what they want to hear, which is not always factual.
ralf-who
·2 months ago · EditedSo your answer is, "live with it because fixing it would be too much of a pain?"
The answer is absurdly simple. Restrict the offending information to a few dozen entries instead of the HUNDREDS (somethings THOUSANDS) now allowed.
OR,
Bring back (from the early days of EBAY) the search feature "SEARCH TITLES ONLY".
I would pay a monthly fee for that capability.
awbrown
·2 years agoi REPORT ONE SELLER THAT COMES UP IN EVERY SEARCH i DO BUT THEY DO NOTHING !!!! USING 992 WORDS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ITEM BEING SOLD.....
eburtonlab
·2 years agoi REPORT ONE SELLER THAT COMES UP IN EVERY SEARCH i DO BUT THEY DO NOTHING !!!! USING 992 WORDS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ITEM BEING SOLD.....
You should consider excluding that seller from your search, or else excluding one of those other 992 words that is not directly related to your own search.
ralf-who
·2 months agoThat is abject nonsense.
I do searches for SPECIFIC parts for a SPECIFIC car. Today I searched for CORVAIR brake drums and got back no less than 2300+ 'hits'. The first 50 I viewed all had the 'Interchange Part Number', and the 'OE/OEM Part Number' and the 'Manufacturer Part Number' and the 'Superseded Part Number' USER SUPPLIED FIELDS loaded with (actual count) 750 words that had no relation to 'Corvair brake Drums'. And to your point, all of the first 50 viewed were DIFFERENT SELLERS.
It is EBAY's responsibility to prohibit this crap; it is not the buyer's job to sit there and code hundreds of sellers' IDs to avoid.
eburtonlab
·2 months agoToday I searched for CORVAIR brake drums and got back no less than 2300+ 'hits'.
I see 63 results for corvair brake-drum in the Brake-Drum category:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/33565/i.html?_nkw=CORVAIR+brake-drum&_sop=10
At first glance, all those results look reasonable to me. At least 55 have Corvair in the title.
eburtonlab
·2 years agoListings will simply contain a string of manufacturers names in the title because the person creating the listing thinks that, because there are compatibilities, this is allowed and of course it is not because it ruins the search function which is the point of eBay's policy to begin with.
You can filter out the listings that contain such a "string of manufacturer names" by picking another manufacturer not related to your actual search, and then excluding that specific manufacturer name. Then any listing with that name included will not appear in your results.
Exclude the results that are easily excludeable, and for the listings that are harder to exclude in that manner, exclude the specific seller by username and report the seller for keyword spamming.
For whatever reason, it appears that keyword spamming -- though clearly against eBay policy -- does not seem to be a high priority for eBay, or at least eBay does not seem to take much immediate action regarding reports of keyword spamming. That does not mean that users should not report keyword spamming, but it does mean that users should probably not expect immediate results from such reports.
Save the reporting for the most blatant cases, and find a search strategy that lets you find the things you want to find and avoid the things you want to avoid.
ralf-who
·2 months agoThe answer is to bring back (from the early days of EBAY) the search feature "SEARCH TITLES ONLY".
I would pay a monthly fee for that capability.
toysaver
·2 years agoIt's not a terribly egregious offense. EBay is no different than any other market or selling venue that needs to turn a profit. The ultimate goal is to make you buy something you didn't even know you wanted or needed. My preference is that get added funds that way than from increasing selling fees.
ralphx65
OP2 years agoAnd, the very first response is exactly as I predicted, dismissive.
Then it seems to me that they need to change the policy from "this is not allowed" to "we frown on this activity" and then tell users "we don't really care if the search works as intended or not." Obviously they do care. The policy was put in place for that reason and they say as much in the policy itself.
We are not here to judge how "serious" a policy violation is, we just follow it and we expect a listing to be removed when it's not followed just as eBay has said they would be. Pretty much that simple.
Is the reason you are so dismissive of search manipulation because you do it as well? Seems logical.
jerzee908
·2 years agoI agree. I notice this with action figure lots. People will put MOTU, G.I Joe, TMNT and have not a single toy for that is in their lot they are selling. Because those are popular action figures, people put it in their title when selling a group of figures. I get it.
ralf-who
·2 months agoThe answer is to bring back (from the early days of EBAY) the search feature "SEARCH TITLES ONLY".
I would pay a monthly fee for that capability.