SEARCH Result Inconsistencies when SORTING

[elronster]

Can anyone explain why the number of results in a search change depending on how the results are sorted?

You can see it for yourself easily. Do a specific enough search so it doesn't give you thousands of results, for example, search "Concert Recording" within vinyl records. If the results are sorted by "Best Match", I see 205 results, but if you sort these results by "Price: Lowest etc", it reduces the search results to 121.

This happens with all searches. WHY?

[eburtonlab]

The "Price plus shipping: lowest first" sort order provides filtered results -- often drastically filtered. And the option to "see more results" may not always be shown as it should. The filtering may vary depending on the keywords used.

If you encounter a drastically filtered result for a keyword search using a desktop browser, you should be able to use the "Feedback" link in the lower right corner of the search results to provide feedback on your search to eBay developers. The more users provide info, the more likely something is to be done about the over-filtration problem.

You can avoid that problem entirely by using a different sort order.

If you have few results, try sorting by "highest first", then starting at the end of the results, scroll up instead of down. This also avoids the problem of variation listings with low-cost variations appearing at the top of the lowest-first sort.

If you have a bookmarked or saved lowest-first search that you use a lot, you can avoid the filtration by adding the following to the end of the search URL, then saving the resulting search:

&_blrs=recall_filtering

As to why eBay filters the "lowest first" sort, only eBay can say for sure, but this approach was probably chosen by eBay because the results that would otherwise appear at the top of the sort may be items that are unlikely to be what the searcher is looking for in many cases.

For instance, a search for a widget sorted by lowest price might put broken widgets, widget parts, widget accessories, books about widgets, widget plans, and t-shirts depicting widgets before any actual working widgets are shown in the results.

Whatever the reasoning, eBay's current implementation of the filtering is seriously flawed.

I suspect that two or more of eBay's "smart search" features are interacting in an unintended manner, resulting in excessive filtering for some searches. And the fact that the "See more results" link does not appear just adds insult to injury. Buyers may have no idea that they are missing the vast majority of results when using that sort.

[tobaccocardyahoo]

When there are an enormous number of search results and a buyer sorts lowest first, there is no reason to give them thousands of results, they are price oriented.

There are too many items on this site to allow unfiltered searches.

Best Match generates the largest number of results because the buyer often types a vague search term, but the buyer usually either filters the results, makes the search more specific, or goes away if they do not find what they want to purchase in the first two pages of results.

It is unlikely a buyer will search for concert recording, They might search for an artist and concert recording.

Usually when a seller starts one of these threads, their examples are low probability of being what a buyer would search for. Ebay attempts to optimize results to help a real buyer decide to buy something.

Although Ebay is much smaller than Amazon, its search results are too plentiful to be efficient. Amazon's catalog system makes a purchase more likely, and Amazon has more advanced search algorithms.

Ebay's separate listings make promotion and it cost necessary more often.

[elronster]

I pretty much only use eBay via my saved searches, some of which are set to "Best Match" and others to "Price: lowest". With some of my saved searches, I get the opposite of what I described above, where I get more search results sorted by "Price: lowest", and then half the results sorted by "Best Match".

I tried adding your suggestion at the end of the URL in a few different searches, but it made no difference in the number of results, regardless of how the search was sorted. I'd get the same number of search results whether I added to the URL or not.

[jeffbuzz]

I reported this issue by phone months ago but nothing has changed.  Clearly ebay doesn't want buyers to easily find the lowest priced item.  Their "best match" algorithm is promoting listings according to that unknown metric above all else.

[eburtonlab]

I tried adding your suggestion at the end of the URL in a few different searches, but it made no difference in the number of results, regardless of how the search was sorted.

That can happen if the search has few enough results that the filtering does not kick in, or if you had used the "see more results" before saving the original search, in which case the parameter (or an equivalent) is already part of the search URL and adding it again has no effect.

The good news is that if your search does not change when adding that to the URL, that means that your saved searches have not been missing any results all this time.

I am less familiar with the "Best match" sort, as I do not fully understand what criteria eBay uses to determine what is "best". I typically only use "Best match" in a preliminary search to find a likely candidate listing to search for part numbers or other keywords that can be incorporated into a more comprehensive search.

[unfussymotors]

The URL addendum didn't work for me either, and it's definitely a search where sorting by price (in either direction) removes 90% of the results. Literally 90%!

Edit: in fact, the string

&_blrs=recall_filtering

 is already in my URL before I go to paste it in.

[eburtonlab]

@unfussymotors 

Can you provide a link to the search you are doing?

Any difference if you try another browser or temporarily disable your ad blocker?

[unfussymotors]

An example, in an incognito window (so vanilla Chrome):

• Search "cast iron skillet 6 lodge"
  • 634 results, ebay defaults to sort: best match, generates this URL: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p4432023.m570.l1313&_nkw=cast+iron+skillet+6+lodge...
    
    
• Change sort to lowest first (or highest first, same result)
  • 362 results, ebay adds the "We’ve streamlined your search" tooltip, generates: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=cast+iron+skillet+6+lodge&_sacat=0&_sop=15
    
    
• Click See more results in the tooltip
  • 384 results, ebay generates (this includes your URL snippet at the end): https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=cast+iron+skillet+6+lodge&_sacat=0&_sop=15&_blrs=reca...

[eburtonlab]

In the case of your skillet search, the problem seems to be that "Best Match" is finding additional results compared to the other sort orders -- matches that do not necessarily contain all your search keywords.

Problems with Best Match appear to be a relatively recent development.

[unfussymotors]

I appreciate you taking the time to look into it. I'll have less FOMO when I switch to price sorting now.

I do find it baffling when product teams reinterpret search, filter, sort, or any other long-solved database UX pattern. Maybe I'm just old. Best Match includes items that... don't match. Could be something more like a dialogue to "show related items". Or they could be really honest and call it Weak Match. Either way, it's more of a filtering feature than a sorting feature. Oh well.