07-29-2021 07:09 AM
Lately I've noticed that sometimes eBay searches match your search term to a synonym rather than what you actually searched for. Not as as a "no exact matches" result, but simply included in your main results. For example, searching for "blah blah blah JUDGE" includes results without the word JUDGE, but with the word JUSTICE instead. "blah blah blah SLING" returns items with the word CATAPULT. I notice it more when eBay can't seem to find 'enough' good matches. I can see value in this in a normal "Google" search, but it's more annoying than not in eBay when your searching for very specific items and only those items. I wish there was a way to disable it. I don't always catch it right away (in items with long titles) and end up wasting time viewing irrelevant items.
07-29-2021 07:23 AM
To turn off such "search expansions" (also covers singular vs. plural and other expansions) use any Boolean operator, such as minus sign or quotes, e.g. sling -catapult which doesn't just exclude catapult but turns off the expansion algorithm altogether for that search.
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