Ebay has replaced Search with a marketing program

[deltilogical]

I needed to search for washington dc rotograph.   Ebay keeps changing the search to washington dc autograph.  OVER AND OVER.  There is no smart or intelligence there in this software anymore.  This isn't a matter of a typo or giving me the choice to choose, it just changes the term when I click search.  not exactly sure if its working in quotes or not.

We need an offsite non-ebay service now to search the site without Ebay forcing me into their search terms that have no bearing relevance or request - much like the independent and useful duplicate listing application.   

Sellers fees should be reduced as Ebay removes the efficacy of the software. They can make up the difference in their successful forced marketing implementation.  

[silverstatetreasureboxes]

@deltilogical 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/175505308249?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=vWHv5YdeTri&sss...

    I had no problem as I capped the DC and the R in rotograph.

[sextons-sweet-deals]

I see 52 listings just by using 'washington dc rotograph' in eBay search. 

The problem is that eBay has messed up their original search engine based on the title description box. I have to continually do a word play description in order to see all or at least most listings similar for what I'm searching for. 

[luckythewinner]

I searched "washington dc rotograph" just as you typed it and got 57 results, all of which had "rotograph" in either the title or in the item specifics.

[dhbookds]

This is what I get:

[lindzac69]

The article is helpful, I may need this content in the future.

[eburtonlab]

If a search that has worked well previously suddenly starts behaving badly, often the problem has something to do with a faulty keyword substitution or an inappropriate automatic category navigation issue.

You can bypass many of these sorts of search issues by putting one of your keywords in quotes. This forces eBay to bypass the "smart" features and to search for the literal keywords without any substitution or category switching. You may have to manually specify your category once again.

Using a desktop browser, find the "Feedback" icon that appears in the lower right corner of the search results page to let eBay page developers know about your search issues.

[coolections]

Searched washigton dc rotograph and it gave me 52 of them with no problem.

[the_fancy_fox]

Search for it through Google. Add ebay into your search terms. Google works better than eBay’s search. 

[eburtonlab]

Google works better than eBay’s search.

Google's search is very good for some things, but perhaps not for everything.

Google gives search preference to pages that have been around for a long time and that have lots of other pages with links pointing to that particular page. On eBay, that can steer users toward older, ended listings or product catalog pages rather than finding the most recent listings.

[redlinear]

Hi new buyer!
welcome to ebay! 
In order to buy you must 1st complete a month of eBay training on how to search.
Enjoy!

[eburtonlab]

In order to buy you must 1st complete a month of eBay training on how to search.

The point of having default search behavior is that anyone can plug in a keyword or two and search without any training at all, and find some potential items to buy that meet the search criteria.

No one needs any training to do this. In fact, the default search is primarily geared toward the inexperienced, marginal user.

Most of the folks complaining about how search works are actually more experienced users that have outgrown the training wheels and are trying to figure out how to take them off so they can perform much more complex, comprehensive searches rather than just seeing the results that most users are likely to buy.

[coolections]

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@eburtonlab wrote:

The point of having default search behavior is that anyone can plug in a keyword or two and search without any training at all, and find some potential items to buy that meet the search criteria.

No one needs any training to do this. In fact, the default search is primarily geared toward the inexperienced, marginal user.

Most of the folks complaining about how search works are actually more experienced users that have outgrown the training wheels and are trying to figure out how to take them off so they can perform much more complex, comprehensive searches rather than just seeing the results that most users are likely to buy.

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I think the biggest problem is most who complain about search just do not spend the time looking over the page. Ebay has one of the most excellent and comprehensive searches I have ever seen. Everything is all on one page if you just look. Most of the choices are on the left side of the page that allows a user to narrow down a search. You are right, for more experienced users they can use the advance tool and narrow something down to a nats arze.

[pageafter]

The search engine is incredibly messed up.  I searched for a specific issue of a magazine with name + date. Typically, I'll get 5-10 accurate results, choose the one I want and purchase. Today, I get over 400 of the correct *name* of the magazine, but from all sorts of years and months--completely useless.  At the top of the search results was the message "We’ve streamlined your search results to show you the best listings".  Best listings?  How can it be the best results when it spewed out hundreds of dates/issues I did not search for?

[evelyb30]

I've called it "Worst Match" for years.   It always kicks up what it thinks it wanted instead of what I actually asked for, and these days it's worse than ever.  The OP may be on a phone, and those routinely screw things up, especially exact match search.   Auto-incorrect rides again!  Tablets do the same thing, unless you tell them not to.  

Google visual search messes up even more, if possible; I get usable results about one time in 10.