How to list a Box of Magazines that are Searchable by Specific Magazine Issues.

[tomatbay]

I have a "Lot" of many magazines spanning multiple years.

How can I set up my listing so that if someone is searching for a particular issue AND that issue is in  my lot, my listing will come up in his search?

My listing is basic and not the one with shipping policies etc. (I don't know what to call that "fancy" listing.)

I have seen listings where people put huge spam lists somewhere in their listing which become Keywords so almost any search will go to their listing.  I don't know where such lists are put, but a search for "June 1999" would hit on one of those lists if either "June" OR "1999" was present - that would not work for me. 

[kensgiftshop]

Since they are used magazines, they should have their own listings so you can describe each magazine.

[tomatbay]

Please just answer my question.

[jonathanbrightlight]

You've had many good answers already.  You just don't like them.

[splendidthreads]

Specifically to your question,  the person would have to be searching by description for a particular issue to come up, unless you had that phrase in the title.  They would need to have their words in parentheses to only pull up that particular phrase, "June 1999".  Otherwise, if your description has "June" and "1999" but not necessarily "June 1999" in it, what you describe would happen. That's the weakness of selling magazines in lots (and a major benefit to buying magazines in large lots!) The savvy buyer will know to look in the description after searching for the name and year they're after.  The ones who only go by the title may miss those issues. 

I looked at the lot you have listed. To get year and volume number into the title, which is what most people would probably be searching by, you could change the title to 

"Lot of 27 STEREOPHILE Magazines 1986 88 89 90 91 92 93 Vol 9 11 12 13 14 15 16"

Ebay will pick up year by either the 4-number date or the 2-number date, so the "19" isn't necessary in Ebay searches. You can use that extra space in the title to include more information.  

You could do the same for similar titles. If you do one-year lots and you want to include all the issues, do it as something like "1992 Automobile Magazine Lot Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec." Or list the volume numbers and some of the highlight names from the most desirable issues. A completed search of those particular titles sorted by highest sold for will tell you more about the format of the issues buyers purchase.  In my experience, it's different for different genres.  

[tomatbay]

That spam example I included was like the first one I ran into when searching for some Studebaker parts - I was very specific and was getting a thousand hits when I should have gotten zero.  

People insisted my search terms were in the listing, I said that wasn't possible because I was not searching descriptions.

Then I found out there are Keywords resulting from ITEM SPECIFICS.

You can Add Custom Item Specifics.

This method would work with a Title Search.

I could make a Custom Item Specific for each issue OR a single CIS for a string of issue dates.

I'm running test cases to see if I can define a string of issue month/dates.  

This will definitely work for single words.

Might work for a CIS "1999 Issues" for each year where the entries are the months for that year.
I'm going to try that one right now to see how it behaves to searches.

If someone has another way to accomplish this, I'm very much interested.


  

[splendidthreads]

Good luck! I hope you'll come back and share what worked the best.  I didn't realize the IS came up with just title searches. That would explain why so many items are returned when words I'm searching aren't included in the title.  

I hope the CIS option works for you.  It will still take some time typing in all the months or whatever variables you'll add, but at least they will make the issues more visible than what they might be with the space limitations in the title. 

[tomatbay]

I've tried creating a Custom IS with unique value and it does not come up with any kind of search.
I have tried to search on existing IS and that isn't working either.

The eBay Motors IS spam lists (example I gave earlier in this thread) definitely causes hits.

It problem could be:

• eBay Motors works differently
• Custom IS do not work
• IS w/words not recognized by eBay do not work

Have exhausted the experiments to see how the spammer method works to no avail.
I suspect eBay Motors may behave differently - it does seem to be separate from eBay categories. 

[dhbookds]

I don't think Custom IS have ever been searchable......could be wrong......but seems like we did alot of tests way back..... 

[tomatbay]

I'm having no luck either, but spammers with their spam paragraph IS lists does work.  This all started when I posted here about getting 100's if not 1000's of hits for a rare Studebaker part that should get zero hits.  Commenters told me I was getting hits because my search terms were actually in those listings.  I opened one of those span listings, did a search and found it in those insane paragraph lists which attempt to include every automotive word in the dictionary.

So the technique does work.  

My current thinking is that another criteria must be met for this spam technique to work.

It could also be the type of listing:  simple -vs- the business one with policies.
Or a preference that needs to be set?

[grand-and-glorious-purpose]

if your title is Fangoria Magazine lot of 20 issues

anyone searching for Fangoria #125 will eventually see your listing