Does ebays algorithm actually care about the best practices ebay employees tell us matter. BREAKDOWN

[brettyg599]

So I was doing searches today and noticed best practices do not seem to be affecting the top 100 of the "best match search" It looks like it only cares about auctions, sponsorship's, and new listings.

Of the first 100 Patagonia jackets when I search "Patagonia Jacket" Here is the results.

Free Shipping excluding promoted listings: 19 of the 100

Free Returns excluding sponsored: 4 of the 100

Top Rated Plus excluding sponsored: 4 of the 100

White background excluding sponsored: 10 of the 100

Sponsorship's: 13 of the 100

Auctions: 74 of the 100

New listing including sponsored: 45 of the 100

Ebay store owners excluding sponsored: 30 of 100

Guaranteed shipping: I actually didn't know an easy way to check this one but I could infer not very many have guaranteed shipping.

If you look at this data it is very clear they are prioritizing auctions and new listings.  Both of which are typically not long time professional sellers.  Most professional sellers do not do auctions and ebay has advised me on multiple calls that its buyers want buy it nows(Yet they are giving most of the top search results to auction style which makes no sense).  If you notice only 4 of the top 100 non sponsorship's carry the top rated plus icon.  It is almost a non factor in search now which is SUPER SAD to me considering the weight it used to hold. Also of note free returns meant almost nothing and concerning is more of the top 100 are from non ebay store owners than store owners. That doesn't make any sense to me since I would guess more than 50% of patagonia jackets on ebay are from store owners. The search is not prioritizing having an ebay store.

I did this same sample for multiple other items I sell, "North Face Jackets" "Lularoe Dress" and saw the same results.  It appears to me inaccurate that the algorithm uses best practice as ebay states and that is how to boost our sales.

If you look at my data it didn't care about white background, top rated, free returns or free shipping.  It pretty much only prioritized new and auction style listings.

This is why a lot of big sellers and long time sellers have seen huge declines.  Only very recently listed stuff sells and they conveniently moved all our stuff to GTC never becoming new again. It moved almost all store owners items off the first 100 results.

Would love for some others to check categories for items they sell and chime in.  If we create enough noise ebay has to listen and either tell us how best match works, or better make best match work how they say it should by using BEST PRACTICES.

Would love your input on my findings @Anonymous 

[brettyg599]

@southern*sweet*tea 

Thanks for taking the time to do this.  I guess I should of done google incognito but as of this year the results on my incognito and my regular account had been identical.  It did not seem like the algorithm was using my past information for best match.

I actually believe the only reason the results were different is because we did our search at different times.  Best match definitely cycles stuff pretty fast nowdays it seems.  Back a year ago or 18 months ago if you had a item in best match it would basically stay on the first couple pages until it sold.  Now if it doesn't sell fast on the first couple pages it slips back pretty fast.

Your information does confirm one thing tho, free returns and top rated mean almost nothing.  Ebay keeps telling us they are really important and best match uses them to catalog.  They can keep saying that but the results and tests I keep running do not show that at all.

How did you tell which ones on the page had guaranteed shipping?

[Anonymous]

---

@brettyg599 wrote:

So I was doing searches today and noticed best practices do not seem to be affecting the top 100 of the "best match search" It looks like it only cares about auctions, sponsorship's, and new listings.

Of the first 100 Patagonia jackets when I search "Patagonia Jacket" Here is the results.

Free Shipping excluding promoted listings: 19 of the 100

Free Returns excluding sponsored: 4 of the 100

Top Rated Plus excluding sponsored: 4 of the 100

White background excluding sponsored: 10 of the 100

Sponsorship's: 13 of the 100

Auctions: 74 of the 100

New listing including sponsored: 45 of the 100

Ebay store owners excluding sponsored: 30 of 100

Guaranteed shipping: I actually didn't know an easy way to check this one but I could infer not very many have guaranteed shipping.

If you look at this data it is very clear they are prioritizing auctions and new listings.  Both of which are typically not long time professional sellers.  Most professional sellers do not do auctions and ebay has advised me on multiple calls that its buyers want buy it nows(Yet they are giving most of the top search results to auction style which makes no sense).  If you notice only 4 of the top 100 non sponsorship's carry the top rated plus icon.  It is almost a non factor in search now which is SUPER SAD to me considering the weight it used to hold. Also of note free returns meant almost nothing and concerning is more of the top 100 are from non ebay store owners than store owners. That doesn't make any sense to me since I would guess more than 50% of patagonia jackets on ebay are from store owners. The search is not prioritizing having an ebay store.

I did this same sample for multiple other items I sell, "North Face Jackets" "Lularoe Dress" and saw the same results.  It appears to me inaccurate that the algorithm uses best practice as ebay states and that is how to boost our sales.

If you look at my data it didn't care about white background, top rated, free returns or free shipping.  It pretty much only prioritized new and auction style listings.

This is why a lot of big sellers and long time sellers have seen huge declines.  Only very recently listed stuff sells and they conveniently moved all our stuff to GTC never becoming new again. It moved almost all store owners items off the first 100 results.

Would love for some others to check categories for items they sell and chime in.  If we create enough noise ebay has to listen and either tell us how best match works, or better make best match work how they say it should by using BEST PRACTICES.

Would love your input on my findings @Anonymous 

---

Hi @brettyg599, many factors go into our Best Match algorithm; while I am limited in what I can provide, I can confirm that one of the most important factors considered is the listing price. Though a seller may be implementing a variety of best practices like those you have listed, they may still appear lower in search if their item price is not competitive. Search history for the member running a search, shipping times (based on the shipping address on file), and the level of engagement with relevant listings can also determine what is displayed. 

You can review additional information on our Best Match optimization recommendations here. When you are reviewing search results to see how you may be displayed for potential buyers, try doing this research while fully logged out or by using a private browser/incognito window or consider changing the shipping address to different locations that you ship to.

[luckythewinner]

Re: Does ebays algorithm actually care about the best practices ebay employees tell us matter.

Yes, it does care about them.

But the eBay algorithm also cares about dozens (if not hundreds) of other factors, so it is almost impossible to assess the effect of any individual change.

Best Match is a scoring system. A listing gets positive points for some factors and negative points for others, and then the scores are added up and item items are ordered. So an individual factor will only improve placement if the score change is enough to move it ahead of another listings.

The listings at the top may have a completely unrelated factors that gives them a big boost - like price, great historical sales, the seller's amazing sell-through rate, the seller's zero or low return rate, etc. etc. etc.