Either eBay Search is broken or...

[obtanium_enterprises]

Either eBay Search is broken or this is eBay's new way of "promoting" the listings of favored sellers...

First I entered 1N4742A without quotes into eBay Search and was presented with essentially the following, and then I entered "1N4742A" WITH quotes into eBay Search and was presented with essentially the following:

So, either eBay Search thinks "1N5231B" is the same as "1N4742A" or eBay Search favors the seller of the 1N5231B perhaps because of eBay's "Fast n Free" gimmick method of penalizing quantity buyers with what essentially becomes a shipping surcharge that discourages quantity buyers. Broken search, or broken eBay? (Rhetorical question.)

[obtanium_enterprises]

PS- Even funnier, repeating the search with "Best Match" selected produced the same.

[berserkerplanet]

That first result for the 1N5231B, has an MPN=1N4742A in the item specifics (IS), at least some of which are included in basic search.

It's that sellers mistake causing that result to appear.

In this case pretty sure it's a mistake since that seller only has 49 listings and no other zeners.

Never really thought about it, and pay zero attention to SEO inside or outside eBay, but a larger seller could switch MPN's in different zener listings to produce more eBay search engine visibility. ie: put 1N4742A in IS of 1N5231B listing, and 1N5231B in IS of 1N4742A listing etc) Makes both show up when either is searched, and buyer might say "Hey. I was looking for 1N4742A but I do need some 1N5231B". Might be detrimental to google search though because of wrong MPNs. Tradeoff?

[obtanium_enterprises]

Good catch!

I have a couple of listings that seem to be lost in the search, even though I populated the item specifics, so I'll be looking into this and doing some experiments. But, I wonder if eBay's keyword spamming policy might also apply to item specifics...???

[berserkerplanet]

Interested to see your results.

KWS policy SHOULD apply to it, and don't know, but suspect it does - as far as it goes with reporting listings for violations (I've never seen a listing reported for KWS go down - even ones with hundreds of keywords hidden in body via white on white text.

[aaron71]

Been happening to me quite often. I'll search for a specific car part or computer part and alllll these non-relevant things come up first. 

Say, I search for a 1993 Honda Civic passenger fender. Why do fenders for 2018 Kia's come up and say "FITS 1993 CIVIC" next to it? No it doesn't! It's just spam!