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Search is useless now like Amazon's

eBay's search feature by keyword has been amazing for the last 20 years.  Now when I search, the algorithm shows me products that don't even have my keywords in them.  Amazon does the same which is why I rarely buy through them.   I hope eBay fixes this or they've lost my business.

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Search is useless now like Amazon's

Yeah I have seen some not too related items to the keyword search come up and usually they seem to be the promoted listings hitting the top of the search and not relevant to the exact keywords. 

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Search is useless now like Amazon's

What keyword(s) are you using to search?

 

There are several possible reasons why titles appear in your results that do not contain your keyword(s), but if you can figure out how your search is going wrong, there are likely steps you can take to get better results.

 

When eBay searches using a keyword, if the keyword appears in the title or item-specifics of a listing, that listing can potentially appear in the search results. The keyword does not have to appear in the title.

 

If a keyword search returns few results, but a slight variation of the keyword produces many results, eBay may substitute the more popular keyword. This can help in the case of a spelling mistake, but it can also lead to unwanted results. When eBay makes that sort of substitution, there should be an indication at the top of the results with a link to the original uncorrected search.

 

In some cases, eBay may also search for synonyms of a keyword along with the original keyword.

 

If you do not want any keyword substitutions, corrections or synonyms, you can avoid that by putting one of your search keywords in quotes. That should prevent any substitutions and force eBay to search for exact, literal matches for your keyword.

 

Sponsored listings may also appear in your search results. Those sponsored listings should have some connection to the search keywords, but often the connection is difficult to figure out.

 

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Search is useless now like Amazon's

I agree, it used to be good but now it comes up with pages of stuff completely unrelated to what I’m searching for. It’s categories are extremely weird too. For instance, I was recently searching for cotton wool strips, (the kind that you wrap around your hairline when using a perm, to stop the liquid running into your eyes) Well I eventually found some, but to my amazement they were listed in the category “Other lighting - Fairy lights”.  Since when does cotton wool light up ? 

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