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Despise beyond words "sponsored" listings in search results

Is it too much to comprehend that when I do a search for NEWLY LISTED items instead of BEST MATCH I only want to see NEWLY LISTED items come up?? The rage I’m feeling when I now get garbage posted back in November, December and intervening moths is ruining my experience on this site. Like someone else who posted about this recently, I’ll be making a point to NOT buy anything from anyone whose listing clogs my search results. The stuff from 6+ months ago that’s still up and unsold is still up and unsold because it’s overpriced retreads no one wants, and throwing it in our faces and forcing us to look at it is piling an insult on top of the outrageous prices some sellers are already asking for their unsellables. As if that’s not bad enough, it’s not all stuck at the top of the listings so I can just grumble and race past it all to what I really want to see--I get it mixed in with the new listings so I get something posted at 1 PM, then the next listing is from last February, then last April, then 12:40 PM, and so on.

 

Makes me just curse this site the whole time. I hope that’s what the Developers had in mind because that’s the result they’re getting from me.

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Re: Despise beyond words "sponsored" listings in search results

Your thoughts completely mirror my own.  In all honesty does ebay ever do anything to make the experience better?  Every time they add or change something, it's for the worse or infuriating.  I think it's about time that ebay dies a miserable death.  We need something to replace this horrible system.

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Re: Despise beyond words "sponsored" listings in search results


@edisonguy1 wrote:

Is it too much to comprehend that when I do a search for NEWLY LISTED items instead of BEST MATCH I only want to see NEWLY LISTED items come up??


Software developers do not program based on your specific preferences. I, for example, NEVER use "Newly Listed," but I can't imagine feeling "rage" if that's how results were displayed. "Best match" is a standard sort feature and is the norm for displaying search results.

 

I prefer my search results to display "Price + Shipping: lowest first." I use the desktop version, so I changed my sort preference to that, and that's the way the results are displayed every time I search.

 

I personally can't imagine feeling rage and cursing when using an online shopping venue--but, hey, different strokes, right?

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Re: Despise beyond words "sponsored" listings in search results

@edisonguy1 

 

Those sponsored items that appear at the top of the sorted results can be removed from that spot by installing an ad blocking extension in your browser. AdBlock, Ad Block Plus and uBlock are some examples -- google "ad blocker" and your browser version for some other choices.

 

I use Ad Block Plus, but I believe that pretty much any ad blocker on its default settings should be able to remove those "sponsored" items from the top of the results, and I think they should appear in the appropriate spot lower down in the sort order.

 

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Re: Despise beyond words "sponsored" listings in search results


@eburtonlab wrote:

Those sponsored items that appear at the top of the sorted results can be removed from that spot by installing an ad blocking extension in your browser. AdBlock, Ad Block Plus and uBlock are some examples -- google "ad blocker" and your browser version for some other choices.


You're thinking banner ads. An ad blocker won't remove the sponsored items:

https://tamebay.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/eBay-Promoted-Listings-in-Search-Results.jpg

But the bookmarklet from @berserkerplanet will clean them right off.

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Re: Despise beyond words "sponsored" listings in search results

@alseyf-73 

 

You're thinking banner ads. An ad blocker won't remove the sponsored items.

 

The ad blocker I am using (Ad Block Plus) removes both. Specifically, it removes the "sponsored" portion of the listing -- the listing then appears in the list at its correct sort position, not at the top.

 

Note the top two items in each list (sorted lowest price first).

 

Without ad blocking:

 

 

 

sponsored before.png

 

 

 

 

After ad blocking:

 

 

sponsored after.png

 

 

 

 

 

Message 6 of 15
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Re: Despise beyond words "sponsored" listings in search results

Your success is encouraging, and gives hope.

Adblock Plus sponsored.png

Message 7 of 15
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Re: Despise beyond words "sponsored" listings in search results

Yes, ABP (and probably others) can remove sponsored results IF they have extended CSS selector capability like newerish versions of ABP possess (my crusty old versions like 2.6.13 do not have that capability.)

The extended CSS selector functions :-abp-has() and :-abp-contains() allow ABP to target a characteristic (like the text "SPONSORED" buried down in a containing LI element) and be able to then hide that parent LI element. Normal CSS (like my ABP version is capable of) can't "crawl" back up the selector chain, and can only hide the target and it's children.

It's similar to the approach the bookmarklet uses. Bookmarklet finds an array of all the LI elements that are search result rows or grid panels, dives down into each of those containers one by one and looks for target class attributes and selector chains that uniquely identify Ranged Price results, and Sponsored results in row and grid layouts for both sch and dsc style search pages. If it finds one of the criteria, we already have the pointer to the parent LI element, and we replace the entire contents of the LI element with our simple green "Removed Sponsored Result nn" replacement string as a clickable URL. Then iterate to the next LI until we have cycled through the array.

ABP essentially does the same thing. Difference is, all ABP can do is hide elements - instead of replacing the innerHTML of the LI containers, it applies a display:none CSS style attribute to them. The bookmarklet can do anything to the LIs. We could replace each grid panel with a picture of a kitteh, turn it black, with enough work.

When it replaces the innerHTML on grid display pages, it appears the grid structure remains (which is good). On list display pages, it replace the content with a single line of text, and the element collapses down to one line high (which is also good). We could disappear the elements the way ABP does if we wanted too, but I abandoned that approach a long time ago. I prefer a visual indication that something was there and removed.

Anyway, I'm fairly certain it's the EasyList subscription ruleset in ABP that does the deed - barebones ABP without those external rule sets does nothing without user rules edited in. There are dozens of semi generic rules in EasyList that target permutations of "sponsored".

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Re: Despise beyond words "sponsored" listings in search results

@alseyf-73 

 

If it matters, I am using Ad Block Plus version 3.5.2 with EasyList. I have some custom filters that I use with Firefox, but the screenshots I posted are from Chrome where I am using the stock default settings.

 

I did uncheck "Allow Acceptable Ads" -- which may be the difference.

 

Try unchecking that setting and see if it helps.

 

Message 9 of 15
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Re: Despise beyond words "sponsored" listings in search results

OK, that just made my day.  It's such a pain to see these sponsored listings at the top of the "Sold" listings.  Really? Seriously??  Now, I can just go back to the way it was before.  Thank you very much.

Message 10 of 15
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Re: Despise beyond words "sponsored" listings in search results

Unchecking the "Allow Acceptable Ads" does make the difference.

Message 11 of 15
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Re: Despise beyond words "sponsored" listings in search results

HOORAY! Thank you so much. AdBlock Plus works beautifully in removing those mind bogglingly annoying sponsored ads. I was getting 10 to 20 at least in most of my searches. Now, zero. I now that they are paid ads and provide revenue to ebay, but it's a sure way to put peopl off and move toward other selling sites. Thanks again.l Much appreciated.

Message 12 of 15
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Re: Despise beyond words "sponsored" listings in search results

So you're the one that created the bookmarlet the removes ranged prices. I've been using it for awhile and it's been great. I'd forgotten where I got that code. Do you have one that removes the sponsored listings? I guess it would need to be merged into the other bookmarklet code.

 

Also can you tell me what part of the code I would remove to just remove, without replacing with the "removed" text (and save space on the screen)? I wish I knew JS.

Message 13 of 15
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Re: Despise beyond words "sponsored" listings in search results

@bluttrull 

 

It appears that berserkerplanet has not signed in to the community pages since September.

 

It is currently possible to block sponsored listings using a custom rule added to the uBlock Origin ad blocking extension. See this message, and the three following messages for some details:

 

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Buying/How-do-I-hide-Sponsored-Listings/m-p/30324151/highlight/true#M2...

Message 14 of 15
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Re: Despise beyond words "sponsored" listings in search results

I have been searching to get rid of "Sponsored" ebay junk. I found an post the recommends uBlock Origin.
I HAD been using "Adblock Ultimate", and I was seeing sponsored listings. But they are gone with UBlock. Go for the "U" Block, not the "AD" Block.
I hope that this helps.
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