eBay

ksedar · ‎06-17-2023

I am not sure what they are doing to it but I know they are doing something messed up and this is why I say this. I use a third party ebay search engine crawler and that looks for listings with keywords that I am internested in buying. I have two searches set up to look for "brooches" and the word "broken" which is a weird search but I digress. Normally for the last year Ive used it It returns to me each morning the max amount of listings it can find, always like 25 or more, whatever their limit is. This makes sense because there are tons of brooches and broken things on ebay, right? Well for the last 3 or 4 days I have gotten ONE result for the keyword "broken" and 5 returns with the word "brooch" in them. They are not making available to buyers the massive amount of listings they have. Either that or they are cutting off the automatic search I use but if thats the case, then I would get no returns on my auto search, right?

stevemartin60 · ‎06-17-2023

When EVERYTHING is about short-sighted gain, things like bandwidth cuts certainly could come into play.

luckythewinner · ‎06-17-2023

@ksedar wrote:
I use a third party ebay search engine crawler and that looks for listings with keywords that I am internested in buying.

Have you tried using saved searches on eBay and having them email you a summary each day and comparing the results?

ksedar · ‎06-17-2023

No I have not, I am not familar with saved searches on ebay. I use Automatedsearches. and it has always returned the max amount of listings for those two keywords, as would be expected. I got a return email today that said their were only 7 listing results with the word "brooches" in it. How is that even possible unless they are manipulating the search engine or somehow blocking the search from getting results. If I search on ebay itself there are thousands of listings with the word "brooch" in them. All I'm saying is something is very different now and my listing crawler can't find anything.

ksedar · ‎06-17-2023

I also noticed today that I ended a handful of listings, and relisted them using the bulk tool and "sell similar". All of a sudden key item specifics are missing, ones I KNOW I filled in at the time of original listing. And only on a few of them, not all of them. So weird.....

new_spin_boutique · ‎06-17-2023

I've broken this down in other thread, but in a nutshell - I think eBay has two server clusters running at the moment. One is the main sever with the old OS and the other new, with a cached or mirrored listing database. I think the cached database is only a small faction of the full. Hence, why search only returns a limited amount of items, at times. Purely theoretical but all of the data points in this direction.

According to an eBay rep last week - he said another couple months and it will be finished. We'll see.

inhawaii · ‎06-17-2023

I find it so ironic that i've never once seen a buyer come here complaining about the search not working.

They always seem to find what they are looking for.

It's only sellers that complain about the search not working.

Sellers searching for their own stuff.

I sold some items yesterday and woke up to an early sale today.

People are somehow finding and buying my stuff.

Can you give us an example of one of your items that is not searchable?

One In A Million You - Larry Graham

ksedar · ‎06-17-2023

Well I am the OP and I AM a buyer, I use the automatedsearch. to save time searching for brooches to buy. So to say you never once seen a buyer come here complaining....well here I am commenting (not really complaining, more like looking for insight) on what I am experiencing. It's good that you are making sales.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎06-17-2023

@inhawaii wrote:
I find it so ironic that i've never once seen a buyer come here complaining about the search not working.
They always seem to find what they are looking for.
It's only sellers that complain about the search not working.
Sellers searching for their own stuff.
I sold some items yesterday and woke up to an early sale today.
People are somehow finding and buying my stuff.
Can you give us an example of one of your items that is not searchable?

@inhawaii

I can't make any of sense of this but it appears what is happening (from several recent personal tests) when you do a search using the terms you think you should be using it brings up limited results. If you click on 1 of the items that is a match if gives you more from the promoted banners floating inside that listing. To make things even weirder, most of what comes up is not even related in the original search. Basically filler junk. I was able to find 1 of my items this way. (from the promoted banner inside a listing). Makes one's head spin trying to figure out what exactly is in play.

-Lotz

As a side search results can change drastically by adding the term book after a title or CD after a CD title. You can also test theories and they may work 1 day and be completely different the next. My guess way either wayyyy too much tinkering under the hood or someone forgets to put all the parts back where they found them!!!

Side 2...No sales for 8 to 10 days then suddenly 3 sales in 2 days. The on/off switch observation has been shared with me from numerous fellow and fellowette sellers.

new_spin_boutique · ‎06-18-2023

It's ironic? How would a buyer even know what should be showing? I've heard from many buyers telling me they searched for a thing one day and the next day all the listings were not showing. I've seen it many times. Buyers are stuck with eBay like I am. They don't care about getting to the bottom of things. They just go to another marketplace and buy the same item. Not really a mystery. It's expected.

new_spin_boutique · ‎06-18-2023

Buyer's are NOT stuck with eBay like I am, is what I meant

ksedar · ‎06-18-2023

So here it is the next morning and my automatedsearch. has found ONE item on ebay with the keyword "broken" and ONE item with the keyword "brooch".....I will go to the search website and delete and redo my original searches and see if that makes a difference. But as I said, I'm a buyer using a third party search engine crawler and can't find ANYTHING like that as of a few days ago. Before that it was a FULL email page of selections the crawler found for me. I'm glad I saved a couple sellers I found to make repeat buys with them but now I am not seeing other sellers stuff unless I got to the ebay site and search which is tedious.

ksedar · ‎06-19-2023

one last update. Last night I deleted my search and made a new one and this time I told it to search the descriptions as well. And I put keywords "broken jewelry" in there and immediately it sent me a email with results FULL with the maximum results they could put into their email notifications. Then it will give me another result emailed to me each morning. This morning I looked at the email results and got 3 results for the keywords broken jewelry, even with the descriptions included in the search. Not sure what this means? Are they blocking searching engines now? Why only 3 when the previous night I got the maximum amounts of listings?

nuclearomen · ‎06-19-2023

search engine will never be "fixed" this site has too much old irrelevant coding and too much tampering with the coding that exist.

The great truth is there isn't one
And it only gets worse since that conclusion...
...There is something about the rigid posture of a proper, authentic blind
As if extended arms reached to pass his blindness onto others.