buggy search. how to file a report?

[flashcoder]

I was thinking that eBay has got the search right compared to awful search on Amazon for example. But no, I was wrong. Here is a very simple example that eBay search is not showing you all the results it should. This is super annoying. Its okay to boast about your self driving cars but before that you should make sure that a basic stuff like search works properly. Here is whats going on:

Do a search on these keywords: 4 SAS hot swap

You get a bunch of results, but this one will not be among them: https://www.ebay.com/itm/291406412971

Explain me why.

Thanks,

Neal

[eburtonlab]

@flashcoder 

Before I did the search I would have guessed it was a case of implicit category navigation -- where eBay steers a search into a particular category. But the search terms you used do not trigger it.

Since your search terms found over a thousand results for me in all categories, I decided to add "cage" to the search terms to bring it down to a manageable 45 results. The listing you highlight is #44 on that list (sorted by newly listed).

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=4+SAS+hot+swap+cage&_sacat=0&LH_Ti...

Incidentally, that item is listed in the wrong category: Tablet and eBook reader cases covers and keyboard folios.

[flashcoder]

Before I opened this case I made sure that I am not doing something wrong. I checked that the results are representing All Categories. Also I verified the possibility that eBay might interpret the quotes and not see the number 4 because it appears between the quotes: 5.25" to 4 x 2.5" SAS and SATA 6Gb/s Hot-Swap Cage

So I ran another search: SAS hot swap

and limited the price range between $100 and $110 to narrow the number of results so I can find it. And guess what - the item 291406412971 still is not among the results!

I know that if I would add a word "cage" I would get it show up in the search result. But why it does not find this item without specifying that word explicitly - I cant explain. This is clearly a bug. 

[eburtonlab · Accepted solution]

@flashcoder 

I searched "SAS hot swap" (without quotes) and got 1500 results in all categories.

I added the $100 to $110 limit and got 347 results. I changed the sort order to "low to high" to more easily find the item.

The resulting search does not contain the item, but if you look closely, there is a note at the top:

"We removed some search results to show you the most relevant listings. View all results"

If you click on the "view all results" link, this is the page of results:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=SAS+hot+swap&_sacat=0&_udlo=100&_udhi=110&_sop=15&_bl...

The item does appear on the "all results" page.

It's possible that the item was removed from the original results because of the incorrect category, or due to some other factor that is less apparent.

[flashcoder]

You are right, I could repeat it. But strangely when you click "view all results" the number of results stays the same - 347 which is confusing anyways. But thanks for pointing out, I appreciate it.

It would be great if eBay search would not try to be too smart. The problem nowadays is that every vendor is trying to be smarter than a customer, that covers everything starting from software ending with hardware. And increasingly often a customer has no ability to override it. I could bring you a bunch of examples but that is probably an off topic. If this trend continues then the promised happy future when Internet of Things comes to life could prove to be a disaster. And if apply that logic to self driving cars (and that will happen inevitably) I would rather stick with a steering wheel in my hands.

Thank you for solving this.

[eburtonlab]

@flashcoder 

But strangely when you click "view all results" the number of results stays the same - 347 which is confusing anyways.

Yes, I've noticed this as well. It appears that the number of results corresponds to the total before the results are filtered, which makes it difficult to determine how much filtering is really going on.

It would be great if eBay search would not try to be too smart.

Agreed! eBay definitely should provide a simple way to opt out those "smart" features that does not rely on users backwards engineering the search results. In many cases those "smart" features are just smart enough to be troublesome.

Good luck with your searches!