Exclude in advanced search not working

[pmlombardi]

Exclude in advanced search not working. I see posts going back years for this issue. Putting a minus sign in front of word doesn't work either.

[eburtonlab]

Putting a minus sign in front of a keyword seems to be working for me when searching, at least when the excluded keyword is not the first or only keyword.

A sample search:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=%22Edison+Giocattoli%22+plastic&_sacat=720&_sop=10

The same search excluding machine:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=%22Edison+Giocattoli%22+plastic+-machine&_sacat=720&_sop=10

The excluded results missing from the second search (removing the minus sign):

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=%22Edison+Giocattoli%22+plastic+machine&_sacat=720&_sop=10

If you are using Chrome and having problems with the Advanced Search page, there does seem to be an issue with Chrome's password manager inserting your username or email address into the Advanced Search page's "search by seller" field, resulting in a search of your own listings (if any) and often returning no results due to that. If that is what is happening to you, deleting and then re-adding your eBay sign in credentials may help.

[pmlombardi]

I get the exact same search results when I search for

krosno

and

krosno -spring

[eburtonlab]

krosno:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=krosno&_sacat=0&_sop=10

17,000+ results for me.

krosno -spring:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=krosno+-spring&_sacat=0&_sop=10

8,600+ results for me.

[pmlombardi]

I do see that adding the minus sign reduces the number of results, but in the results, there are still hundreds of hits with "spring" in the title or body.

[eburtonlab · Accepted solution]

I do see that adding the minus sign reduces the number of results, but in the results, there are still hundreds of hits with "spring" in the title or body.

You are right -- those should not be appearing in that search using that exclusion. The only thing I can think of is that sometimes eBay combines two keywords together and treats them as a distinct keyword. I think that may be happening with "gas spring". Excluding gas from the results as well appears to eliminate those listings:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=krosno+-spring+-gas&_sacat=0&_odkw=krosno+-spring+-gas.spring&_...

[pmlombardi]

Thank you!

[eburtonlab]

You are very welcome!