Listing title options

[dfbell9604]

Recently I searched an item using 3 different ways. VICTORIA, Victoria and Victoria’s.  The 1st 2 came up over 1,500,000 listings and the 3rd one 600,000.  Is I better to list where there are less or more listings?  I found it interesting the more complete name for the search of Victoria’s Secret had fewer listings.  Thank you for your thoughts.

[nobody*s_perfect]

Even more "interesting," a search on victoria's includes plenty of listings which have the word victoria, not victoria's.   Some don't even have either word in the title, just victoria in item specifics.  eBay's search algorithm is truly mysterious. IMHO you want your listing to show up in a maximum number of members' search results, so I'd try to include both words in the title if there's room.

[chevymontecarlo88]

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@nobody*s_perfect wrote:

Even more "interesting," a search on victoria's includes plenty of listings which have the word victoria, not victoria's.   Some don't even have either word in the title, just victoria in item specifics.  eBay's search algorithm is truly mysterious. IMHO you want your listing to show up in a maximum number of members' search results, so I'd try to include both words in the title if there's room.

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That is good advice. @nobody*s_perfect 

@dfbell9604 

I would also check the results with sold listings which may give you a better understanding where the money is actually going. Follow the money.

[luckythewinner]

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@dfbell9604 wrote:

Recently I searched an item using 3 different ways. VICTORIA, Victoria and Victoria’s.  The 1st 2 came up over 1,500,000 listings and the 3rd one 600,000.  Is I better to list where there are less or more listings?  I found it interesting the more complete name for the search of Victoria’s Secret had fewer listings.  Thank you for your thoughts.

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Like Google and just about everywhere else these days, eBay search is not an exact text search - it is a search engine that interprets the search criteria. 

eBay search has always tried to match plurals with singulars and vice-versa, just as it has tried to match numbers with their corresponding English spellings (ex. "10" and "ten"). They also often appear to have special rules for search terms that are brand names, or search terms that match a category name (ex. "Dolls").

The answer to "What is Best?" depends on the context and even then may not be a straightforward answer.

IMHO the best thing to do is think like a buyer, try various searches yourself, and see which way you think would be best for your item. 

[buyselljack2016]

As suggested...........  use both.

The "theory" of less would suggest that you use neither word ...........  thereby having less competition in search (while not showing up in search)

It would be like having a yard sale in the back yard behind a fence at night with no lights at the end of a dead-end road with no yard sale signs out anywhere.

Use as many "searchable" words as possible to be found. Being found is a necessity of selling.

[ellemaytx]

It seems like the ebay search engine ignores capitalization and turns non alphanumeric characters like (",-+/) into a space.  My theory is that the searches for VICTORIA and Victoria are equivalent, but the search for Victoria's is really a search for Victoria plus the letter S separately - that is why it returns fewer listings.  

Thanks to this, I just realized I had something listed as VICTORIAS  without the apostrophe, which might explain the very few views.  I changed it to Victoria's.  It does make it interesting to figure out how to title our listings to get eyes on them.