Search Weirdness

[baydistributionllc]

So I noticed something weird…

My process is to clean and test a group of items. Then I photograph the items. After that I leave the warehouse and sit in my office to list the items. The next day, before I start cleaning and testing another group of items I put the previous days items away on the shelves. I bring up my active listings on a laptop cart used only for putting items away. If you leave the search on “title” but then scan the UPC with a scanner it will still bring the item up. So thats what I do for most items. Once found I put the bin location in the custom label field. Easy.

Here is the weirdness. Many of the items don’t have a UPC. I have to type keywords to bring them up. For an example I will use a snap on 10mm socket. So I go to put this socket away, searching my own inventory, I type “snap on.” It doesn’t come up. It doesn’t matter that my search is verbatim in the item title, it doesn’t show it. Case sensitive and all that. Character for character my search criteria EXACTLY match the keyword I used, almost always a brand, it doesn’t show. In My Own Inventory! So I type “10mm” then boom, there it is. I check to make sure I haven’t misspelled snap on. I haven’t. I put the item away.

I haven’t experienced this on a snap on item . I just couldn’t remember specifically any of the items I last noticed this happening on.

Its like they killed the keyword for my item. If that keyword doesn’t show the item in my inventory, Ill bet it doesn’t show that item in anyones searches for that keyword.

Anyone else notice this?

You would think if they were suppressing keywords they wouldn’t allow that suppression to be seen by simply searching ones own inventory. They are clearly not that bright however so It wouldn’t surprise me.

[dhbookds]

If you could give us a specific keyword that doesn't cause the listing to show, it would help figure out what's going on.  That said, if keyword is "buried" in the title.......i.e. Vtg Old Rusty 1950's tool Works Blah Blah Snap on Socket, that could cause a problem.  Used to be said that first 3 words are the most important place for the key words........

just thoughts .......after only 1 cup of coffee.

[baydistributionllc]

Your right. I should have found a specific example. I will find one today.

[luckythewinner]

When you are searching, pay attention to category that the search results are filtered to. 

eBay has a long history of "category switching" in seaches - by which I mean eBay uses your keywords to try to guess the appropriate category. 

For instance when I search "snap on" in a new window, eBay will swith the cateogry from "all categories" to "hand tools". 

[coolections]

Searching current 1 1/8 snap on sockets. Yours was found at approximately 160th of 200 listings I searched. There is too much competition so I had to switch the search from low to high.

[a_c_green]

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@baydistributionllc wrote:

I haven’t experienced this on a snap on item . I just couldn’t remember specifically any of the items I last noticed this happening on.

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Just a nitpick and I don't suppose it matters for search purposes, but Snap-On Tools uses a hyphen in their name between "Snap" and "On," so you might want to correct that in your listings, almost all of which are currently showing "Snap On" instead.

[baydistributionllc]

I FOUND IT! Finally. I went to my inventory to find a real example and I couldn't find one. I have been waiting for it to happen again naturally and it finally has.

Item 154814830616

When I am searching active listings in my ebay I can scan the UPC on the box and it comes right up. I search for "shower" it comes up in the list. But if I search "Delta" "delta" or "DELTA" it does NOT show. The verbatim keyword "Delta" does not bring it up in my own inventory.

[meme6253]

Yes that has happened to me, I find some item's in completely different categories than what I listed them in, Very Frustrating & Aggravating!

[dhbookds]

I see it:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=Delta+shower+arm&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_fsrp=1&rt=n...

in your items:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?item=154814830616&_ssn=baydistributionllc&_osacat=0&_odkw=&_from=R40...

[baydistributionllc]

Ebay hiding my items wasn’t really what I was getting at. I think its just evidence of how the algorithm buries things and we will never know why.

Two or three days after I posted the reply about the shower arm the “Delta” keyword started bringing up my item in my own inventory like it wasn’t doing previously.

They saw my post and took the suppression off my item? Doubt it. I would like to understand why it happens. 

[eburtonlab]

I would like to understand why it happens.

From time to time when searching I notice that an expected item does not turn up in the immediate search results as it apparently should.

As an example, I might be searching for a national widget, and the search turns up ten national widget results. Below those ten results, there will be a section of results matching fewer words, one of which contains the exact term national widget in the title. Perhaps the title is super national widget or something along those lines.

My speculation is that eBay's search will sometimes group certain keywords together, and treat them like one single keyword rather than as individual keywords. In my example, I suppose that eBay has decided to treat super national the same as supernational, and a search for national widget is not counted as matching a supernational widget result.

eBay's search is apparently constantly changing, making new connections between keywords and trying to link similar keywords together, so perhaps at some point it recognizes that a search for national widget should match a supernational or super national widget, and at that point the search begins to act more the way you would ordinarily expect.

Keyword grouping explains why, in some cases, keyword order actually matters a great deal, and the same keywords in a different order can produce drastic differences in search results.

You can often avoid grouping issues by rearranging the order of the words in a search, by dropping one of your keywords or by searching using different keywords.