Is there a way to use Boolean Expressions to search ebay?

[mark_in_maryland]

ebay's filters and "Advanced Search" are helpful, but I still get craploads of irrelevant results for every search.

  There is nothing as good as Boolean Logic for doing a search, and there used to be several search engines which supported this.  I believe ebay was even one of them, but if they now support Booleans, I am unable to figure out how to use them.

  If anyone can tell me how to use Boolean Expressions in ebay search, or even of any general web search engines which support them, it would make me very happy.

(  For those unfamiliar with Booleans, a short example is that I am trying to find a small electric fan which runs on 110 Volt AC current, without a battery, and mounts with a clamp-on or clip-on base.

  A boolean search phrase for this might go as follows;

"small fan"  +110  +(AC OR VAC)  +(clamp OR clip) -battery

  You can readily find a much better description online.

[rfmtm · Accepted solution]

Yes, you can use Boolean search parameters, but anymore they are basically ignored as ebay heavily manipulates the search results anyway.

Each site has it own variation of how a Boolean search is formatted.  On ebay for your example it would be:  "small fan"+"110" +(AC,VAC) +(clamp,clip) -battery

Note, that ebay search results also change with the order the keywords are used, further messing up a true Boolean search.  

Also engaging any of the sort filters, besides applying the filter, can hide items from view.  The worse offender is sorting Lowest Price + Shipping.  This can actually hide the lowest priced item and make others invisible as well.

Good luck figuring it out, and if you do, it won't be long before ebay again changes how it works.

[mark_in_maryland]

Thanks a lot for the helpful response and the additional info.

  I remember a meta-search engine (Metacrawler? If so, they've changed it.) which used Boolean expressions, and it would translate your search terms into the appropriate equivalent phrasing for each of 6 different search engines & submit it to them, then concatenate the results and present them to you.

  It also showed what search engines it was using, and allowed you to block any which were misbehaving.

  It took a bit of time, but at least it was POSSIBLE to restrict search results largely to relevant items, and I think it was still more efficient than paging through scores of screens having nothing to do with one's search.

  Boy, do I miss it!

[eburtonlab]

Some info about using Boolean operators to search eBay can be found here:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Buying/How-to-use-Boolean-operators-in-ebay-search/m-p/29941476

[rfmtm]

@eburtonlab  Wasn't there an actual ebay help page guide to searching with the syntax and formats used by ebay.  I can't seem to find it anymore.

[eburtonlab]

Wasn't there an actual ebay help page guide to searching with the syntax and formats used by ebay. I can't seem to find it anymore.

eBay replaced the old Help pages that covered this topic in detail with a generic page pointing users to the Advanced Search page instead.

Some of the old, broken links appear in the thread I pointed to.

There are some old but still working Help pages found on the Singapore site, but those still refer to wildcard searches which no longer work after 2012.

The links to the Help pages on eBay Ireland in this post seem to be the most recent that still provide details of how searching works:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Buying/How-to-use-Boolean-operators-in-ebay-search/m-p/30497121/highli...