Error in search results, limited number of items shown

[lovekatsvintage]

When searching items, the search results will only show 2 pages of items, not all items indicated in number of items found. Example: search for large pink buttons in ALL shows 686 but only two pages will show with 196 in each page.

Very frustrating~I have been a seller and a buyer for 17 years (had buyer only account before this account) so know my way around a search.

Anyone else having search problems (of any kind)?

[corvettestainless]

Variations count in that larger total. If a seller has 10 different buttons, it will count as '10' in that count. 

[eburtonlab]

@lovekatsvintage 

As underhood_dressup indicated, for multiple variation items each variation counts toward the total number of results, even if the listing only appears once in the results.

For instance this search:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=large+Handmade+Sewing+Chinese+frog+closure+fasteners+...

For me that search returns two item listings, which taken together account for 64 results in total once you count all the variations.

[lovekatsvintage]

Thank you for your reply!
My problem is that what I search for is vintage and only one of a kind, so variations should not be a factor, because there are no variations. But the vintage searches I'm doing the last few days, will pull up a different list of items for the same search I did just a few mins earlier. Out of the whole quantity of 600+ found in one of the searches, the results will only let me have 2 pages of those listings at 196 items per page to view. Leaving off all the rest which I cannot view. Ebay has changed something in the search engines, but I can't find a notice or community post to explain this.
As said, I have been on Ebay for 17 years, and I've seen lots of changes over the years, but the prob I'm encountering has just been happening in the last few days , and it's not normal. Sellers items are being left off the search view. Not good for sellers =(
Thanks for your info though!

[eburtonlab]

@lovekatsvintage 

If variations are not the cause, it may be your sort.

If you are using a "Lowest price plus shipping" sort, your results will often have a message at the top that says "We removed some search results to show you the most relevant listings. View all results" -- if you do not follow that "View all results" link, you are only seeing a subset of the total results despite the number shown at the top of the results.

If it is not your sort, then it may be a software bug of some kind; I know that for some searches with many exclusions (or excluded sellers), if the search URL gets too long, it can break the search. Sometimes this happens when moving from page 1 to page 2 in a search due to the way that eBay constructs the page address.

I do know that eBay has been having problems with changing some categories and item-specifics (mainly Clothing and certain collectibles) that has affected search filters (particularly "size" filters for clothing) over the last week. Perhaps that has affected your category as well.

If you could provide a link to one of your searches that is exhibiting this behavior, I might be able to figure out what is going on.