Customize Your Search NOT WORKING

[prestigecollectiblesauction]

I have CUSTOMIZE YOUR SEARCH set for Gallery View and 192 items per page. Apparently eBay doesn't care what I set and save since it keep showing me List View with 48 items per page. Just one of many glitches on this horrible website. 

[eburtonlab]

@lurphyjohnson 

@prestigecollectiblesauction 

I tried a browser that I do not normally use (Avast Secure Browser) and tried to change the custom search settings. There is definitely something odd going on; I am able to set any particular settings and have them stick for the session, but when I check the custom settings again it shows "List View" as the default regardless of what I have set and what I am seeing in the current search. If I close the browser and restart, it does default to List View, even if I had been using Gallery View previously. Other settings seem to be kept -- picture size, sort order, etc. But it always seems to go back to List View.

Since I use List View almost exclusively, this is not something I had noticed before. In addition, the List View/Gallery View is one of the few settings that is not stored in the URL of the search, so if you want to use Gallery View, it seems that you must manually select it at least once per session.

[eburtonlab]

One correction to my previous post, you can convert a list search to gallery view by adding the following to the search URL:

&_dmd=2

So perhaps one workaround is to bookmark a search with that term in the URL, and use that as the basis for further searches.

[watrwest]

Examining @eburtonlab ’s screenshot it appears your problematic search is …
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=baseball+card+1957&_sacat=0&LH_titledesc=0&rt=nc

….results=63823.

Deleting the following terms has no effect on the results count so they are dead wood…
_from=R40
&_sacat=0 search all categories this is the default and can be eliminated.
&LH_titledesc=0 searches ONLY title lines not descriptions this is the default and can be eliminated.

&rt=nc

===============================

Your basic search is therefore…
              https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=baseball+card+1957
…results =63829

===============================

I would suggest the following possibility….
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_pgn=1&&_ipg=200&_sop=10&_dmd=2&_nkw=baseball+card+1957
… results= 63835

_pgn=1 current page number of results
&_ipg=200 number of items per page valid values are: 25 50 100 200
&_sop=10 sort order preference 10= newly listed 1=oldest first 16=highest price
&_dmd=2 = Show as Picture Gallery
other results layouts…
&_dmd=1 = no pix list
&_dmd=7 =Show as List with Item Numbers
&_dmd=2 = Show as Picture Gallery
&_dmd=5 = Show as BIN/Auctions Side-by-Side

If this works for you, you should save the above URL
as a permanent bookmark in your BROWSER bookmarks
… NOT ebay’s saved searches system.

THIS IS IMPORTANT…
When you want to move to the next page of results do not use ebay’s button bar at the bottom of the results page.
Instead go to the active URL at the top of the window
and increment the PGN value by one and hit enter.

If you use ebay’s button bar....

... ebay may reinsert deadwood terms and will re-arrange the URL

to suit ebay's  needs  not yours.

Serious buyers need to take control of their search/browse URL's 

and not leave them to ebay.

I hope this helps

[watrwest]

Parenthetically ...

Is it just me or is 63000 baseball cards from 1957 an absurdly high number?

Are you looking for specific a specific player or team?

Are  there annoying sellers you would like filtered out of the results?

[eburtonlab]

@watrwest 

The "1957 baseball card" search was just my (very rough) guess at what the original poster was searching for based on the partial screenshot of his search results. I was trying to make the search look as similar to his as possible just in case the specific category mattered (I do not think it did in this case, though). It is likely his search terms were different, but your previous post about the URL search parameters should still apply to whatever he is searching for.

[*rvalley*]

I see the customize button, have used it for years, but it no longer works properly. I click my custom settings and it will reset itself and show ALL results, losing the category and the settings... 

[*rvalley*]

I cannot get the saved settings to even work anymore! It has my 'saved settings' but does not use it, when I click it, it changes the search to 'all categories' and still doesnt display it like I prefer 😞

[fr8rain]

Search is not working for me either.  If I do a search and it turns up too many items no matter what exclusion word I use it returns 0 results. This has been going on for about a week. 

[eburtonlab]

@fr8rain 

What search terms are you using?

I have seen posts from folks claiming that their searches are suddenly returning vastly more results, many of which do not contain all the search terms. The searches I have bookmarked appear to be working the same for me, but it is possible that eBay has changed how searches work.

In some cases, the search will substitute alternatives for a particular search term; if you notice that your results are missing one of your search terms, try putting that individual term inside "quotes" -- that should prevent eBay from using substitutes for that term.

If you use exclusion terms, sometimes those substitutions can be a problem. I recall one user searching for a particular kind of incandescent light, and excluding LED from his search provided zero total results. Apparently eBay's search algorithm had determined that "light" was a valid synonym for "LED", so excluding one would exclude the other. The trick of using quotes to prevent substitutions does not seem to work with exclusion terms, unfortunately.

[fr8rain]

Some of my searches are returning results that don't contain my search words also but the bigger problem is when I exclude then I get 0 results so I have no way of weeding out the unwanted.  It has happened with numerous searches.  An example would be elastic and then trying to exclude drawstring.  Comes back with zero.

[eburtonlab]

@fr8rain 

Some of my searches are returning results that don't contain my search words also but the bigger problem is when I exclude then I get 0 results so I have no way of weeding out the unwanted. It has happened with numerous searches. An example would be elastic and then trying to exclude drawstring. Comes back with zero.

When I search "elastic" (without quotes) I get 2,132,674 results in all categories.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1313.TR10.TRC2.A0.H0.Xelastic.TRS2&...

When I search "elastic" (with quotes) I get 2,111,205 results in all categories.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=%22elastic%22&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDes...

If I search "elastic -drawstring" (without quotes) I get 2,061,506 results in all categories.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=elastic+-drawstring&_ftrt=901&_sop=10&_sadis=15&_dmd=1&_oac=1&...

Which category or other keywords are you using? It is possible that in some categories, eBay is using "drawstring" as a substitute for "elastic" (and vice versa). If that is the case, I would suggest using "elastic" in quotes to make sure the results contain that exact term.

[watrwest]

@fr8rain

The suggested search for elastic but not drawstring is unusable.
Searching in the title line only gets 2 million results, divided by 7 days is about 286,000 new listings every day.

(Searching in both title & description yields 13 million results.)

Please give us a fighting chance to help and just post the actual URL causing a problem.

[fr8rain]

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=1-1%2F2+plush+waistband+elastic&_s...

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=1-1%2F2+plush+waistband+elastic+-d...

[eburtonlab]

@fr8rain 

I get zero exact matches for either of your searches, though the first does turn up some "results matching fewer words".

If I remove "plush" from the first search, I get 64 results:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=1-1%2F2++waistband+elastic&_sacat=...

If I add the "-drawstring" exclusion to the search terms, I get 30 results:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=1-1%2F2++waistband+elastic+-drawst...

If I put "elastic" in quotes I get 30 results with or without "-drawstring":

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=1-1%2F2++waistband+%22elastic%22&_...

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=1-1%2F2++waistband+%22elastic%22+-...

[eburtonlab]

@fr8rain 

By replacing the term "1-1/2" with "(1-1/2,1.5,38mm)" to find variations of "one and a half", I can pull in a few more items that meet your search criteria:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=%281-1%2F2%2C1.5%2C38mm%29++waistb...