Links to items change for each search

[ekbustad]

I have a number of standard searches saved that I run periodically to see if there are any new items that I might be interested in.  These searches are displayed most recently added item first.  I would scroll down the listings looking for interesting items until I read an item whose link was a different color, indicating that I had reviewed that and all following listing, so I can stop.

Recently, I have noticed that the links to items that I have already visited from that saved search at a previous time were not in that different color, although those that I visited in the current search were.  I thought that perhaps I had somehow changed a setting in my browser to cause it to lose the history of the links to pages that I have already viewed.  But that did not seem to be the case.

Instead, it seems that If I run one of my saved searches twice, even within seconds of each other, the links to each item in each of the two links are different.   The fires part of the link URL is the same, but there is a long string of seemingly random characters added to the URL, probably to provide some soft of tracking for eBay.  But whatever they are for, it is making my use of eBay more difficult and less interesting.  Which I would think is the opposite of what they would want.

[eburtonlab]

This issue has come up before.

See here for some possible workarounds for your saved searches:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Share-eBay-Technical-Issues/eBay-changing-all-clickable-text-color-to-...

[ekbustad]

Thanks, but that is actually a different issue.  THIS issue started fairly recently.  Exploring it, I see that if I do a "open in new tab" on the link for a listing, the color of the link changes to indicate that I have visited the page that the link goes to.  Then, if I refresh the result page, the color of the link changes back.

[eburtonlab]

Then, if I refresh the result page, the color of the link changes back.

Not if you edit the saved search so that the page address contains the &_fosrp=1 parameter, I believe.

[ekbustad]

So, how do I exit my "Saved Searches" to add that?   Or must I reply on bookmarks instead.  Why does eBay do stupid stuff like this?

[eburtonlab]

So, how do I edit my "Saved Searches" to add that?

One possible method:

Open your Saved Searches page.

Starting with the first saved search, right click on on the link to view your search and open the search in a new browser tab.

Go to that tab and unsave the search using the heart icon at the top.

Paste &_fosrp=1 at the end of the search address in the browser's address bar. Hit enter to reload the search and verify that the links are blue and purple or red and that you can differentiate visited links. If it works, save the new search and close the tab and move on to the next search on your saved search.

Close the tab and go back to the Saved Searches to open the next search and repeat.

Or must I rely on bookmarks instead.

Also a possibility.

Why does eBay do stupid stuff like this?

Impossible to know for sure; possibly changing something else has triggered this issue unintentionally.