Search engine question

[hypertreasure]

I have several kachina carvings listed right now.

When I type the word "kachina" into the search engine, only one of my listings shows up for me, even when I am searching within my own listings.

If I filter the results to all sellers and nearest first, I get the same result, only one showing up.

The one that shows up is a signed piece and I therefore put it in the Native American category.  The others are in the "non Native American crafts" category, even though I know they are Native American, but I am not allowed to list them as Native American because of the rules.  I can find hundreds of unsigned kachinas listed in the Native American category but I dare not do this because I know they will take my listings down.  That's another issue but I'm not complaining about that.  My question is, why do the other listings not show up when I search in my own listings or nearest first/all sellers?

[luckythewinner]

eBay's search engine has always had issues when the search terms are contained in a category name.

Sometimes is switches the search to just that category, and sometimes it just filters the search results to the matching category. 

As soon as you add a word that is not part of the category name ('route', 'hakto', 'squirrel', etc.) you will find that it functions correctly. 

[mistwomandancing]

There's one heck of a lot of Kachinas, but I counted five that were your listings up among the earlier ones shown on the first page.  Good placement.  Congrats.

[hypertreasure]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

eBay's search engine has always had issues when the search terms are contained in a category name.

Sometimes is switches the search to just that category, and sometimes it just filters the search results to the matching category. 

As soon as you add a word that is not part of the category name ('route', 'hakto', 'squirrel', etc.) you will find that it functions correctly. 

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Thanks for the insight.  Now it's obvious why the one in the Kachina category has so many views and the the others have crickets.  One of them only has 2 views in 4 days.   I see this as a problem with the search engine.  It seems to me that the single term should bring up all items with that term, no matter what category they are in. 

[hypertreasure]

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@mistwomandancing wrote:

There's one heck of a lot of Kachinas, but I counted five that were your listings up among the earlier ones shown on the first page.  Good placement.  Congrats.

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Really?  I'm glad to hear that though I can't seem to generate those results.  What search term(s) were you using when you saw the good results?

Thanks

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[ersatz_sobriquet]

I would add the word "doll" to all the listings. Ebay reverts back to the limited kachina doll category for results, but you can get all results by clicking on "all" on the left side of the page. 

It's annoying, but that's the only way to overcome the results, without using a boolean minus sign--

search for "kachina -sneakers" or some other word that would never be used in a kachina listing, and Al the cassini demi-god can't figure out what category to search, so reverts back to the "all" categories you want. 

Do buyers know how to do this to see all categories? Most learn over time. The casual buyer will probably never notice that ebay has limited the results. 

[bubbleman2010]

I got my kachinas under campers and parts.....

[mistwomandancing]

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hypertreasure wrote:

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mistwomandancing wrote:

There's one heck of a lot of Kachinas, but I counted five that were your listings up among the earlier ones shown on the first page.  Good placement.  Congrats.

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Really?  I'm glad to hear that though I can't seem to generate those results.  What search term(s) were you using when you saw the good results?

Thanks

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My search term was...   Kachina carving

Nobody actually knows why search doesn't always pull up all of our own listings when we search for them, when others can find those same listings, active and well.   I've read it works better to search while we're logged out of our account, better to search on a computer that isn't recognized as ours, etc. etc.   I don't even worry about it anymore.  I just concentrate on putting up good listings with good titles, good photos, and good prices, and then... get on with working up more listings. 

[duggmills]

First I searched for "kachina" One item showed up.  Then I searched  "katrina non" and the rest of yours came up.

Yon have the one listed (correctly) in a different category than the others.   I've had this happen with some parts trying to cover a couple of different categories with one listing.

It appears eBay has modified their software to separate items by category so you are now required to pay to list in more than one category.

[hypertreasure]

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@ersatz_sobriquet wrote:

I would add the word "doll" to all the listings. Ebay reverts back to the limited kachina doll category for results, but you can get all results by clicking on "all" on the left side of the page. 

It's annoying, but that's the only way to overcome the results, without using a boolean minus sign--

search for "kachina -sneakers" or some other word that would never be used in a kachina listing, and Al the cassini demi-god can't figure out what category to search, so reverts back to the "all" categories you want. 

Do buyers know how to do this to see all categories? Most learn over time. The casual buyer will probably never notice that ebay has limited the results. 

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Very helpful thanks.  If they don't sell I'll add that term.  Clicking the ALL does indeed return the other listings.

[newnewnewmann · Accepted solution]

Searching for kachina in the general listings hit 3000 or so listing results.

I searched kachina and got 1 result in your own listings, as you said.

I checked buy it now box on the left and got 2 listings, in your listings.

When I searched kachina carving in your listings, I got all 6 showing.

So the difference I found was adding the word carving as in kachina carving.

When I searched kachina carving in the general search, it significantly reduced the volume.

I would think that most searches are for kachina doll. and that's what most of the listings state, kachina doll.

Maybe adding the word doll to your listings would change things?

The ebay search is still goofy anyway.

[hypertreasure]

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mistwomandancing wrote 

My search term was...   Kachina carving

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That makes sense because all of my titles have the word carving in them.

Thanks

[hypertreasure]

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@new-man7 wrote:

Searching for kachina in the general listings hit 3000 or so listing results.

I searched kachina and got 1 result in your own listings, as you said.

I checked buy it now box on the left and got 2 listings, in your listings.

When I searched kachina carving in your listings, I got all 6 showing.

So the difference I found was adding the word carving as in kachina carving.

When I searched kachina carving in the general search, it significantly reduced the volume.

I would think that most searches are for kachina doll. and that's what most of the listings state, kachina doll.

Maybe adding the word doll to your listings would change things?

The ebay search is still goofy anyway.

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I will add doll to the titles if they don't sell this time around.  I didn't use that term because I don't consider all kachina carvings to be dolls per-se, but I can agree that the general public probably uses that term frequently in searching.  Thanks 

[coolections]

You pretty much hit the nail on the head. Sellers need to understand and search like buyers. Someone looking for a Kachina doll would type Kachina doll. Someone looking for a Kachina carving would type Kachina carving. NO ONE would just type Kachina and spend hours looking through thousands of Kachina items.

[hypertreasure]

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@coolections wrote:

 NO ONE would just type Kachina and spend hours looking through thousands of Kachina items.

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I guess I must be NO ONE 🙂