Has anyone ever encountered the ebay "indexing listing delay"?

[neatoldjunk]

I discovered a listing that I starting March 2, 17:45 pst has not gone active and cannot be found by ebay buyers.  When I called ebay service to find out why, I was told that the item was in "indexing" and would not go active until Saturday morning, March 3 or about 12 hours later.  So, when I first checked at 7 am pst my listing had not gone active and when I checked again at 9am and it wasn't, I decided to call the friendly folks at ebay.  Got a nice young lady who told me that my listing would not go active until 1:45 am pst on March 4th and that this was part of the ebay process.  Got referred to a nice young man in listing who again explained that the item was being held up in "indexing" and when I asked just exactly what was "indexing" he couldn't explain it other than it was an "ebay process".  Asked to speak to somebody who might be able to explain just what "indexing" was and got a nice young lady in technical support and she told me my listing was active and I said then it has gone active in the last ten minutes that I spent on hold as it wasn't before that.  She checked further and discovered that it still was in "indexing" and this was just part of the ebay process.  I asked why when my listing shows a start time of 17:45 pst, they were using a start time of 1:45 am pst the next day, her response was that it is part of the ebay process.  I've listing on ebay for over 12 years and this is the first time I have ever encountered "indexing" as part of the ebay process.   And why isn't the start time on my auction, the same as the one the ebay process uses as a start time?  I am beginning to wonder if I may have created a punishment for myself for asking the question.  I plan my listings to start to take advantage of buyer interest and to find out that the planning I do is irrelevant is disturbing.  But then my being disturbed isn't part of the ebay process.  Apparently.   Anybody else have this concern?

[chrysylys]

12-24 hours is not unusual at all.

[chrysylys]

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@neatoldjunkwrote:

Got referred to a nice young man in listing who again explained that the item was being held up in "indexing" and when I asked just exactly what was "indexing" he couldn't explain it other than it was an "ebay process". 

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'Indexing' is a simple process that takes time. It's part of how items get into search engines.  You can see the same process on a Windows PC if you haven't searched parts of the drive or an external drive in a while. 

[dhbookds]

Yes, as to the delay.......A listing of a picture of Robert E Lee took over 14 hours to get on.  Indexing is the "file system" (my definition)  which search engines search  to bring about the search results.  The listing goes thru various filters before being "filed" in the active listings.....  Tho we don't know exactly what they are and how the are checked.... any miltary item/brand name item and a few more take more time to show up than just your average vase.......

[thallidguy]

Indexing delays have been a fact of life here for years and years now. Any database as big as eBay's will take a while to index properly.

[thatsallfolks]

What was the item?

Did you make any revisions to the listing? That restarts the indexing process.

[ted_200]

Did you make any revisions to the listing? That restarts the indexing process.

Yes, it does...

What was the item?

Over 12 hours is somewhat unusual.  And it's usually because eBay routes it somewhere else to be reviewed before going live into search (being indexed), to be checked.

Militaria is one of those items... also high value name brand items (particularly ones from companies that have sued eBay in the past)... higher dollar listings from noob sellers... are among those.   

[neatoldjunk]

Thanks for taking time to reply.  I didn't realize that the same "indexing" applies to Windows.  But then as far as I know, I've never had to wait for 24 hours for Windows to respond.

[neatoldjunk]

Thanks for taking time to reply.  The item listed was a Mills Cartridge belt that after the start time, the category was changed.  Those 2 factors apparently was the cause for the delay.  I had no idea.  Thanks again and good ebaying.

[neatoldjunk]

A first for me, although on second thought, maybe not.  This is the first time that I noticed a delay, but maybe it's happened before, just not so long and so obvious.  Thanks for taking time to reply. 

[neatoldjunk]

Thanks for taking time to reply.   Yes, both revisions and a change of category.  That along with the item itself, a Mills Cartridge belt,  was probably the issue.  Apparently, this is a common occurence and one that I may have encountered before and just didn't know it because previous indexing delay were less obvious and less lengthy.   Learn something every day.   Thanks again for replying and good ebaying.

[neatoldjunk · Accepted solution]

Yes, I both made revisions and changed the category.  That and the item itself probably caused the delay.   It is a Mills Dog Head cartridge belt.   I may have had this happen before and not been aware of it because the delay wasn't as long or as obvious.  I expected this item to have immediate interest and when it didn't, it got me interested and started to check.  Thanks for taking the time to reply and good ebaying.

[readabouthorses]

Go to the listing and then click on the view all revisions link. You did a lot of changes to that which probably made it get "back in line" every time.

[thatsallfolks]

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@neatoldjunkwrote:

Thanks for taking time to reply.  I didn't realize that the same "indexing" applies to Windows.  But then as far as I know, I've never had to wait for 24 hours for Windows to respond.

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You completely lost me with the ‘Windows’ reference. 

[neatoldjunk]

Apparently you are correct.  Plus, I changed the category which created another issue that I contacted ebay about.  That is that for some reason, my ebay account does not allow me to list in 2 categories.  Ebay is still working on that one and told me I should hear back about that in the next 24 hours, from Friday evening.  And more importantly, this "indexing" is not that uncommon and has probably happened to me before and I just wasn't aware of it because the delay wasn't as long.  Anyway, thank you for your response and good ebaying.