How to search on ebay?

[ionfilipski]

How can I search on ebay? When I search X, I get "blablabla not X trololo". For instance I search for aztekium, and from search results there is almost nothing about aztekium. Only 5% somewhere in the middle or ot the end is that I really search. Everything else is fake search result, because of spoofing searches. Is there a way to report the intentional faking of searches?

[eburtonlab]

When I search aztekium in the US, I get 67 results -- almost all of which have aztekium in the item title. Of the two I saw that did not have aztekium in the title, both had aztekium in the item specifics. Most of the results were under plants, but a few were sandals sold under that trade name.

It is possible that the results you are seeing when searching in your location are different.

Typically eBay will match search keywords in item titles and item specifics. Sometimes eBay will match closely related words or attempt a spelling correction; if you do not want any corrections or synonyms, try putting an individual search keyword in quotes.

"aztekium"

That will force eBay to match the literal term without any substitutions.

When searching, I often find it best to start with keywords, then hit the search button. From the results, I can narrow to a particular category if necessary -- in some instances, the search will be steered to a particular category automatically. Once a category is chosen, there are some search filters available that can be used to narrow the search further.

Using keywords, category and filters you should be able to eliminate many unwanted results from your search. You can also try using exclusion terms: put a minus sign in front of a keyword to exclude results with that keyword from appearing in your results. Then change the category and apply your filters again if necessary.

More details about how search works can be found in this old help page from eBay Ireland:

https://www.ebay.ie/pages/help/search/search-commands.html

[donsdetour]

Its a mess for sure. Its one of the reasons for slower sales for sure.

You item 65 results for aztekium or me. 

62 results for "aztekium"  :

and with quotes and search description:
115 results for "aztekium"

[ionfilipski]

That is not about the searching. Your solution is more like adding some spam filters in order to reduce the ill intentioned noise. That is about faking the description and faking the search results. I would expect an answer like "There is a report button, and this will somehow force the ill intended sellers to update the descriptions to correspond to the search result". Or, "There is a rating/stars button where you can downvote the particular items in the search results". Or, ebay intends to implement such mechanisms. Somehow ebay needs a mechanism to do that. It is a serious bug. Google searches worldwide and the results are much more relevant. But ebay searches on ebay only.

[ionfilipski]

Actually 10 results for aztekium out of 200 results totally. Everything else is not related.

https://www.ebay.ie/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=%22aztekium%22&_sacat=0&_ipg=200

[eburtonlab]

Perhaps the results you see in Moldova are different than the ones I see in the US, but all the listings I looked at had aztekium in the title or item specifics. I do not know enough about the subject matter to know if the actual plants listed are aztekium or not, but I doubt that most folks at eBay know that, either.

You are most likely better off using the search tools that eBay gives you to filter out the results you do not want to see, and concentrate on the ones you do want to see. If some sellers are including that keyword in listings that do not qualify, you will likely need to find another way to distinguish the results you want from the ones you don't.

Although there is a "Report item" link on every listing, eBay does not seem to be interested in checking every listing to make sure that the seller has used the correct keywords to describe the listing; unless there is an obvious policy violation involved (meaning "obvious to someone who has no prior experience with aztekium"), it is unlikely that eBay will take any action based on a single report, though you are certainly free to submit one if you wish.

[ionfilipski]

Please understand me correctly, I am not asking how to search. I am describing a problem with the search and would expect this defect somehow to be fixed with providing some reporting or rating mechanisms. I'd hardly believe there is any difference between results in Moldova or in USA. It is the same algorithm, showing the same results. I am a cactus specialist. And the top 200 results provides a relevance of 2.5%. This is not about aztekium, and not about cacti at all. Any description containing such substring as "echinopsis no aztekium, no cereus, no coriphanta" targets the search by "aztekium" but is not related to it. The sellers intentionally are spoofing the search with ill formed descriptions, injecting unsolicited results. Note, the google search is much more relevant, even if it is worldwide unlike ebay search which limited to ebay content. 

[eburtonlab]

Please understand me correctly, I am not asking how to search.

If that is the case, you have chosen an exceedingly poor thread title.

I'd hardly believe there is any difference between results in Moldova or in USA.

If an item does not ship to a user's chosen location, it will not appear in a search by that user, so I can see items that do not ship to Moldova, and you can see items that do not ship to the US. Other than items that ship to both locations, we may not be looking at the same items at all.

I am a cactus specialist. And the top 200 results provides a relevance of 2.5%. This is not about aztekium, and not about cacti at all. Any description containing such substring as "echinopsis no aztekium, no cereus, no coriphanta" targets the search by "aztekium" but is not related to it. The sellers intentionally are spoofing the search with ill formed descriptions, injecting unsolicited results.

You would likely be better off using your expertise to filter your search yourself, rather than expecting an eBay programmer or customer service rep to recognize the distinctions you are making without having you to point it out.

If sellers are including "no aztekium" in the keywords for non-aztekium items, try excluding that phrase from your search terms:

aztekium -no.aztekium

If sellers are including multiple genera, try excluding the ones you are not interested in to block those results from appearing.

Or else try including the name of the species you are interested in searching for. You can include more than one:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=aztekium+%28ritteri%2Chintonii%29+-no.aztekium&_sacat...

There is more than one way to perform a search. Some searches will suffer from false positives (finding items you do not want), and some will have false negatives (missing items you do want). You can try to minimize one or the other, but it is difficult to minimize both at the same time. Sometimes doing more than one search is useful.

You can apply these techniques to other searches as well.

There will always be some sellers trying to get their items to appear in the most searches possible, even if that means including improper keywords. You can certainly report those sellers to eBay for "search and browse manipulation". But while you are waiting for eBay to take action, for your own sake you may want to consider changing the way you search to avoid the listings that do not interest you.