Issues with eBay Search

[yankeesnationcards_ig]

I'm sure this is an issue broader than one listing but here is my experience on an $8,500 baseball card I am trying to sell. If I type in the following:

mickey mantle topps 1956 psa 7

1956 topps mickey mantle psa 7

The search results show all PSA graded Mickey Mantle Topps 1956 listings regardless of grade and I do not see a single PSA 7 listing on the first page of search results. This was working fine until last week at some point, so I'm guessing there was a recent update at some point that caused the issue.

Any suggestions here on getting this fixed? This is not an issue with any of my other listings that I can tell but it is coincidentally an issue for my most expensive listing.

[greatwrighter]

This has been an issue for all listings for quite some time.  The resolution for buyers and sellers is to search with "PSA 7" in quotation marks.  Doing that filters out all the other PSA grades and your item appears at top of search followed by another at $7400 bin and another at $10k obo.  Good luck on your sale.

[yankeesnationcards_ig]

Thanks for the tip but that still doesn't solve the issue that most potential buyers don't know about this fix and my view count is way down since this started becoming an issue at some point in the last ~5 days.

[eburtonlab]

The general searches using the keywords you describe seem to work for me, but I can see where such a search could go wrong. I see 15 results for the first search and 11 results for the second, and your $8500 card appears in both for me.

When you search using keywords alone, eBay will match those keywords to items with each of those individual keywords anywhere in the title or item specifics, in any order or any position.

That means that a PSA 5 version of that card that contained a number 7 anywhere in the item specifics would match all your search criteria, since you did not actually say you wanted to see only PSA 7 results, just results containing those individual keywords in any order.

If you want to only see results with those keywords in that specific order, try putting a dash between them, like this:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=mickey+mantle+topps+1956+psa-7&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=...

That will ensure that only results with those two keywords in that order appear.

You can also put quotes around keywords to group them, but that has other side effects of preventing any keyword substitutions or automatic category navigation.

Using a dash between words works because eBay treats most punctuation used within a keyword search as interchangeable with any other punctuation mark or space. The exception would be using a dash (or a minus sign) in front of a keyword. In that case, results containing that keyword are excluded from your search results.

In general, if changing keyword order changes the results you see, that means that eBay is automatically grouping some of your keywords together. Such situations are somewhat unpredictable, and are highly dependent on the keywords used and the results that are found at any given time. It is better to be explicit in what you want if you are not sure if eBay will group your keywords for you or not.

[tobaccocardyahoo]

The problem has existed at least 3 weeks,

The search often does not make use of any numbers. Grades, dates, part numbers etc.

It is not a consistent problem suggesting there are several versions of the search deployed.

The use of quotes does not always work either.

I am not sure that many buyers will search for PSA 7 specifically, either.

This listing may need to be promoted even if Ebay were to fix the problem.

As a relatively new seller of high priced cards, you are probably going to have a strategy to get buyers to follow your store. You have got half a dozen followers already. And you probably will have to find a way to drive traffic to your listings.

You also need to consider that a reduced view count the past 5 days may simply be seasonality.

My impressions were down, my view count was down, and my conversion rate was up last week. All are now dropping and I expect them to be abominable until January. This is not a time of year for self indulgence.