Buyer Search Templates

[sb_394]

Is there are way to search using wildcards?

[airsheep]

Sadly, wildcards, or " * " were removed from search parameters years ago, for reasons that defy understanding.  There may be a workaround, but I am unaware of it.

[mtgraves7984]

I just popped 'Wild Card' into the Search bar and came up with over a quarter million results. So, yes. Good luck.

[rudy2828]

I think it's because it would overload their system.

[sb_394]

Thank you for responding to my question. I, like a number of buyers on eBay are questioning why they took off wildcards. I collect knives and eBay is a great place to purchase older models. As of now I have to search with an exact name or read through hundreds of listings. In either case, the sellers are loosing money. 

[lattecoffeequeen]

I totally agree.  Ebay must have some really impressive server farms to handle wildcard searches. I use ebay less now because they took away wildcard searches.

If Ebay is reading it, maybe you could add it back in some instances. For example, I don't think the servers will be overloaded if you allow wild card searches on seller IDs.  I am trying to do this with no luck.

[eburtonlab]

eBay did away with wildcards back in 2012, I believe. The speculation at the time was that wildcard text-based searches were not compatible with the keyword-based searches that eBay wanted to use with their sponsored listing program and their own keyword substitution feature, and the general data-collection that eBay was interested in doing.

Some background:

https://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/letters/blog.pl?/pl/2012/11/1354215868.html

https://www.itweb.co.za/article/inside-ebays-business-intelligence/APero3MZ1kr7Qb6m

What are you searching for? There may be some workarounds to allow you accomplish some of the same things you could do with wildcards.

[chapeau-noir]

Wildcard searches use more resources and in a DB and search as big as eBay, take a lot longer (I also used wildcard searches).

That second article is dated 2012 and is mostly a marketing puff - they struggled to even get Cassini working.

[toomuchstuffagain35]

Always follow the money.

That happened when they implemented Cassini (so they could manipulate search).

[simba6]

They used to. Went away about 12 years ago.  Said it put too big a load on their servers.  Dang, making money costs money.

[safan80]

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@sb_394 wrote:

Is there are way to search using wildcards?

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Not anymore. You can key in what you want to look and add a minus sign and remove results you don't want.

For example Blue tie -"with dots" 

Ebay removed wildcard so they can feed you results you don't want. I have noticed emails with unrelated items For example. When looking for a 3070 8GB graphics card I get so many things in my email and search notices that the entire search now expanded to: 3070 8gb -optiplex -ddr3 -ddr4 -dimm. Narrowing down by category is completely ignored by ebay the longer your search is saved.