eBay

eburtonlab · ‎11-12-2018

iamdazednconfused writes (on the Member-to-Member board):

i was wondering if there is a way to stop ebay from constantly trying to prove it is smarter than me lol. it automatically changes my search criteria such as category selection and spelling and it's starting to get a bit frustrating now that updates have slowed my computer down a little. thanks for any feedback you can offer!

Although I haven't found a way to completely bypass the "smart" search functions, there are some steps you can take to minimize the chances of it working against you when searching eBay as a buyer.

The implicit category search seems to kick in when searching two or three common keywords returns a lot of results -- then eBay tends to steer you into a particular category. Sometimes adding a nonsense exclusion term is enough to prevent the category switching. For instance, searching for "cash register" (without quotes) will send you to the "point of sale & money handling" subcategory; which is annoying if you are looking for antiques. If you search instead for "cash register -xyzxyz" (without quotes), the default is all categories, probably because eBay can't figure out what you are looking for based on previous searches.

For words that are misspelled, or are just very similar to other more common words, try putting your individual search word in quotes. This tends to discourage eBay from substituting other words in place of your search term. Quotes are good for searching for "a phrase in a particular order", but if you just want the terms themselves in any order, put quotes around "each" "individual" "word".

These tricks seem to work for me right now, but there is always the possibility that they are failing in some way that I am not seeing; or eBay might just change things around without notice again. So it's a good idea not to become too reliant on any one search technique; try a few different search terms with different filters or categories.

It would be nice if eBay would provide a simple tick-box for "turn off smart searching features" and just allow users to use simple logical search terms if they want to. Unless and until eBay provides that option, we will have to keep track of tricks and workarounds to accomplish what we want and to prove who is really smarter.

berserkerplanet · ‎11-12-2018

Adding _oac=1 to a search URL jumps to all categories, but is an after the fact thing.

Beginning searches from a bookmark like:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw="ZYXWVUTS"&_blrs=recall_filtering&_oac=1
sort of works.

I usually just use existing searches in tabs, but for a fresh start use a bookmarklet:

javaXscript:(function(){
var%20ebayterms=prompt('Enter%20eBay%20Search%20Term(s)','');
document.location=%22https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?LH_PrefLoc=1&ipg=100&blrs=recall_filtering
&dmd=1&_sop=1&_oac=1&_nkw=%22+ebayterms})()

(remove X from javaXscript to use)

&LH_PrefLoc=1 Us Only filter

&ipg=100 100 results per page

&blrs=recall_filtering Prevents "not all result are shown"

&dmd=1 List view

&_sop=1 Time: ending soonest

&_oac=1 Don't use Implicit Cat Nav

I also use Redirector rules to force all the searches to stay ebay.com/dsc/i.html searches and not revert to ebay.com/sch/i.html searches where there are all sorts of ebay hijinks I don't care for.

I realize you are probably looking for a native way to search that everyone can use, but I think that may be mythical beast

Try adding &_blrs=spell_check to end of URL - I think it may smack down some of the "eBay knows what you want better than you do", but couldn't quickly think of any searches that definitively prove it.