Ebay item search results flooded with unrelated items

[mittenmon]

Even my saved searches are yielding item results that aren't even related to what I'm looking for,  which is a very broad category (digimon or pokemon). I can't even FIND any new items because the search yields so many unrelated items. I never have had this problem, and check my saved searches daily.

[eburtonlab]

@mittenmon 

If you find that you are getting many results that do not have one of your search terms in the title, try putting just that individual search term in quotes.

"pokemon" action figure

Often, eBay will use one of your search terms to steer the search into a particular category, and then will ignore that search term from that point on, causing you to get numerous search results that are not related to your search terms. If you do not want to be steered into a particular category and wish to search "all categories", try adding a nonsense exclusion term. So instead of searching for:

pokemon action figure

try a new search for:

pokemon action figure -octopus

Adding the exclusion term will usually prevent eBay from using "smart search" features that cause category changes.

[mittenmon]

This did not fix the issue. I'm still getting flooded with Disney and my little pony results.

[eburtonlab]

@mittenmon 

What search terms are you using?

When I use these search terms:

pokemon action figure -octopus

I get about 6500 results that ship to my zip code. I have not checked them all, but it looked to me like every one on the first page had "pokemon" in the title. 

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=pokemon+action+figure+-octopus&_sa...

[dtexley3]

Results like this have been reported and per the blues and IT, this is "working as expected".  

As the previous poster said, trying adding -Disney or -"My Little Pony" to your search

[atomicwow]

I am having the same problem.  Sometimes I do searches based on the "curiousity" factor.  Just tonight I did a search for Pee wee Herman spelled both PeeWee Herman and Pee Wee Herman.  When I typed PeeWee Herman I got almost no results related to the term and over 1 million hits.  Then Pee Wee Herman and got half with mixed results.  Then I tried "peewee herman" and got just about a dozen hits correctly.  This is very concerning because it means people searching for merchandise I'm selling may be having difficulty finding it.   Also, I have noticed a significant slow down my sales recently...  So frustrating.

[eburtonlab]

@atomicwow 

For a search of Pee Wee Herman, where there are a few variations of the first name, I would suggest either putting quotes around the last name, or else adding a nonsense exclusion term as the easiest workaround to the broken search.

pee wee herman

returns 1.1 million results in all categories, most unrelated.

peewee herman

defaults to "Toys and Hobbies" category, but still returns about 1.1 million mostly unrelated results.

It appears that for anything recognized as a "character" related to "Toys and Hobbies", eBay's "smart search" now treats the term as equivalent to every other character in that category.

To disable the "smart search" there are two basic techniques: quotes and exclusions.

"peewee herman"

returns 249 results in all categories, but misses all the "pee wee" variant titles.

"pee wee herman"

returns 2063 results.

pee wee "herman"

returns 2204 results.

pee wee herman -octopus

returns 2205 results in all categories.

If I were trying to make the most general search that returns relevant results, I would likely use this:

(pee-wee,peewee) herman

which returns 2436 results in all categories.

Or better still:

(pee-wee,peewee) (herman,playhouse,play-house)

which returns 3144 results.

[merlinjamesqwilleran]

I've been having the same problem. I have a recurring search set up for arthur shampoo and I've been getting e-mails for the past few days now with irrelevant results. However, I tried "arthur" shampoo just now, and that seems to fix the problem, so thanks, eburton. Now I'll just have to adjust it on the saved searches.

[bigbillinz]

I have not received an email  from any of my saved searches for 5 weeks.  I put in many calls to Ebay with no results.

[attabookki]

I love the work arounds suggested (haven't tried them), BUT it's not super important that I find my own items in searches.  Who is going to educate my BUYERS about the hoops they need to jump through to find (my) items that they are looking for?

Oh never mind.  I'm sure they are so frustrated with ebay shoving garbage search results at them that they've stopped shopping on ebay altogether.

[eburtonlab]

@hmunsterfriend02 

search "munsters" displays more than just "munsters" items

See this thread (above) for some workarounds for the broken search.

[teslastoybox]

End of June, still happening 😞  I have a handful of listings sitting in idle waiting for the search to be fixed.  I can't price them out based on completed searches; and with a broken flooded search result, no one will see them anyway.

[eburtonlab]

@uncletiquez 

If I put in Batman Kohner in search why does all searches with Kohner show up?

See this thread (above) for some explanations and workarounds for the broken search.

Or try using these search terms:

batman kohner -octopus

[carberrys13]

The message that was sent to me "FIXED" all the problems I was having.  Thanks for your help.

Sterling Carberry     Carberry13

[tenbigdogs]

Hi @eburtonlab, What solution did you message to carberrys13 that fixed his search problem?  Thanks!