Would there be a turorial for E-Bay advanced search function?

[johnlk3]

Wondering if there would be tutorial for how to code E-Bay advanced searches.

For example in trying to set-up an advanced (completed) search for a die cast 1/18 car made by Supercar Collectibles, Dodge Charger R/T 1969, green, 1 of 504, the PDF attachment show some of the possible searches listed by number of exact hits.

Bear in mind this would be a rarer item with more than most exact specifics, but the complexity of tying the different words indicate the need to understand the search engine logic.

Does not seem to matter if using Supercar or Supercars in the title.

[eburtonlab]

eBay has not updated the help pages regarding searches in quite a while, unfortunately.

The closest I can find to a tutorial or even just an explanation about how searching actually works is this old page on eBay Ireland that contains information about search commands:

https://www.ebay.ie/pages/help/search/search-commands.html

Using search commands (quotes, exclusions, or parentheses-and-commas) will allow you to narrow your search results, but will also bypass the Search Expansion feature which provides automatic keyword substitutions or keyword-to-category navigation. That is why excluding a word from your search terms (like widget -octopus) can actually sometimes produce more results than can be found without the exclusion, or why using an "or" search term like (this,that) to search this or that can sometimes produce fewer result than searching either term alone.

Sometimes using different search techniques can be helpful; I have a mix of very targeted searches that only find the correct items with no false positives (such as your Charger green 1969 1/18 search) to make sure that I spot an item if it is listed correctly. Then I also add a few more general searches (similar to your Charger R/T green 1/18 search) that can find other items that might be a match but might not be described the same way.

Since not every seller uses the exact same terms to describe the same item, it can be helpful to try multiple ways of searching -- using combinations of keywords, category-specific filters, and even general category browsing. Then save or bookmark the searches that seem to work best, to use again and again.

Here is one possible search of current items using a mix of keywords and filters:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=Charger+&_sacat=180506&LH_TitleDesc=0&Vehicle%2520Yea...

The filters only work if the seller includes the correct item-specific information in the listing, so it is often still worth doing a more general search, like this:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=Charger+1969+1%3A18+green+-green.light&_sacat=0&LH_Ti...

[jua-mong]

Hi johnlk3,

User eburtonlab shared a clear explanation.

As a collector myself most general searches worked better most of the times than detailed ones.

One tip I would recommend for sure is to clean your internet browser cookies often , as new results can appear everyday and even within few hours, when you are in a quest for a rare item, just my two cents 😉

Regards!