Search is ignoring key keywords

[postingid7659]

I have determined why some of my listings get no hits.  Search picks and chooses which title words it picks up and ignores some of them with no particular reason.

I had an item up that was sold under three brand names (imported).  I included them in the title, but when running searches for similar items, under one brand name my item would not come up. 

This week I have two mirrors on of a particular brand.  If I search (brand) mirror, they do not come up. If I search one more word for the style of mirror, I get them, so it seems the word they're ignoring is mirror - even after I edited it to put that as the second word.  Of the two, one is new this week, one has been on and relisted a number of times. 

Why am I paying for listings even I can't find on the site once they're running?

I have a few pieces posted that I can find in search but apparently no one else is.  No hits at all.  In most instances the lowest priced items of their type listed on eBay - or the only one of that particular type.  

[coolections]

I will find it and give you the results as I am positive I can find it. Let me know the name of your item so I can search for you.

[tunicaslot]

Ebay has stated that it does not show all results to buyers as it may be overwhelming and create a bad buying experience. Yes - others here may find it but that doesn't mean it comes up in everyone's results.

I've often found that the exact 3 keyword search produces exact results under similar items - displayed after their best match results. The best advice is probably to use Facebook and Pinterest to get your item out there on the net as many will click through those links.

[dhbookds]

Without seeing the the titles..........not much to say, except that if search isn't using the terms you are using to find the items..........best to change terms.    Upon doing a search, most of the time there will be "auto" suggestions to complete the search....  those are the most searched on ebay and paying attention/using them is often beneficial.........

[luckythewinner]

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@postingid7659 wrote:

I have determined why some of my listings get no hits.  Search picks and chooses which title words it picks up and ignores some of them with no particular reason.

I had an item up that was sold under three brand names (imported).  I included them in the title, but when running searches for similar items, under one brand name my item would not come up. 

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If you giving us a specific example we can actually help you. Without it , we can only guess. (i.e. the exact search criteria you are using and then item number/title you expect to see.)

That aside ...

One thing that often trips people up is that eBay sometimes switches the category selection when you perform a search if the search criteria closely match the category title. This is especially true of brand names that are categories.

For example, when I search for "honda cars" on eBay.com with "all categories" selected, when the search results come back the category has been switched to "eBay Motors > Cars & Trucks > Honda". So next time you recreate your problem, make sure eBay has not switched the category on you.

[rfmtm]

This article explains a lot:

https://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/letters/blog.pl?/pl/2019/1/1546372508.html

[disorderlieder]

Search engines have been doing that for years, barely any website uses a search engine that just finds all the keywords. It shows you what it wants you to see.

[joesoucie22012]

Yes eBay has stated it does not show all results to buyers but if you have the only one listed on eBay then the buyer won't see your item at all. They will be shown a bunch of similar items that AI picks but not what they searched for.....BLAH.......

[eburtonlab]

@postingid7659 

eBay's search can seemingly ignore some of your search keywords for several reasons, many of which are spelled out under the term "search expansion":

https://www.ebay.ca/pages/help/search/expanding.html

Aside from standard keyword substitution and keyword-to-category changes, it seems that over the past month or so eBay's search is often making inappropriate substitutions which generally cause thousands of seemingly unrelated items to flood the search results.

See here for some examples and workarounds:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Technical-Issues/Ebay-item-search-results-flooded-with-unrelated-items...

[zamo-zuan]

It's extremely frustrating when those of us who search our own items see that eBay is clearly tweaking the algorithm in ways that are making it harder to find items, and have people saying "I can find your items".

The point isn't if it's "possible" to find an item or not. It's "how difficult has it become to find my item". 

If keywords that are integral to your item, such as brand or MPN, are being ignored, and you have #1 results coming up that don't even have those keywords in it, or have it in lower priority fields such as "Interchange Part#", there's an obvious issue. 

EBay has stated in webinar after webinar that they "are trying to make it easier to find your items, not harder", but the reality is not matching up to that. 

Proving that you "can" find an item doesn't really add up to any substance. How easy can you find it - that's the important variable we should be looking at here. Because that's the variable eBay was saying was going to get BETTER, not WORSE.

[rfmtm]

I agree, it's not if you can find the item, but how quick and easy it is to find, and that especially applies to the casual ebay buyer.  And for some, it is just not finding the item, but finding the lowest cost, the closest, a tax free item, a USA item, etc., when the filters don't do their job.

People don't want to spend an hour searching, for what use to take minutes to find.  Sure there are a lot more sellers and items, but besides the search engine and catalog problems, the site is flooded with rule breaking listings as well.  Plus when putting in an exact brand and part number returns a flood of completely unrelated items, something is clearly not right.

Although ebay search just keeps getting worse, especially after copying more of what Amazon search does, Amazon is a close second, and now even my fallback to Google to find items is becoming a mess.

I'd like to think I know most of the tricks to searching, and am well versed in creating search equations, but the rules change so fast it is hard to keep up.  What shows up on one pass, may or may not show up running it again.  And what you think will narrow down a search often only expands it.

The big question is, does returning crazy search results like this actually increase sales?  I guess for a few it does, but certainly at the expense of the rest of us sellers.

[postingid7659]

I'm not about to defeat the purpose of a posting ID.

In the examples I mentioned, (brand) mirror brought up around 125 results.  (brand, type) mirror cut that down by about 2/3rds and suddenly there was my item.  Clearly search was ignoring the word mirror in my title.  

The other item, each search brought up just a handful of results.  Search just chose to ignore one of the brand names I listed in the title, so searching for that brand plus my specific type of item came up blank.  Clearly search was ignoring that brand name in my title.  

In both cases I used those words in the title because they were the most likely to direct people to the item, and eBay chooses to ignore them.  

I don't use Facebook or any of those other pages.  

[spittser]

We can use Facebook and Pinterest to direct traffic to our items on any of a dozen or more different sites. In that case, what do we even need eBay for?