Simply-the-best-for-you Volunteer Community Mentor
Hard to figure this one out. Search criteria: plink variety pack (no quotes)
brings back a screen telling me 0 Results Found so instead they are showing me 'pink variety pack' EXCEPT the first 7 results are clearly what I wanted. 5 of them have the words 'plink variety pack' in the title, one of them as the first 3 words.
I'm used to weird results b/c of I/S's, but this is just odd. I mean it did return what I was looking for, but it doesn't think it did, telling me there were 0 matches. The other 800 some results were unrelated, as one might expect since it claims to have substituted the word "pink" (though the first 7 don't use "pink". I cannot figure out the logic here. Why would it even sub my keyword, when there are clearly results with my kw.
Yeah, add to the fact that this is the same item the seller with BO declined a 38 cent discount on, I totally see why buyers give up. I am ready to just pay more on a big river to not mess around with the you-know-what.
Thank you for the tip, I'll check & see if we still have any Tuesday Mornings. I used to get the variety pack, that I love at BB&B, but they've been out since September & now it seems to have fallen off their computer as an item they even carry.
@katzrul15 Looks like we still have 2 Tuesday Mornings, so I'll check them out. WM sells the regular ones, I really wanted the variety packs I used to get only at BB&B.
velvet@ebay Hey Velvet, hope you had a good long weekend! When you have a minute can you explain or send on to the right dept, why these search results are so wonky? It's telling me 0 found, so it changed my search term to "pink". But 7 ARE FOUND, they are the first few results, that you see in my screen shot above.
Also, normally, if the search engine thinks I made a mistake, it ASKS me if I meant "pink", it does not assume for me. I did NOT mean pink. I meant what I typed & there are 7 results, so it shouldn't be saying 0 results. There's a LOT wrong with these search results.
ETA: It shouldn't be a word order issue as it should parse the whole title, but even if it doesn't, there is 1 result where my search criteria is literally the first 3 words of the title.
@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:
velvet@ebay Hey Velvet, hope you had a good long weekend! When you have a minute can you explain or send on to the right dept, why these search results are so wonky? It's telling me 0 found, so it changed my search term to "pink". But 7 ARE FOUND, they are the first few results, that you see in my screen shot above.
Also, normally, if the search engine thinks I made a mistake, it ASKS me if I meant "pink", it does not assume for me. I did NOT mean pink. I meant what I typed & there are 7 results, so it shouldn't be saying 0 results. There's a LOT wrong with these search results.
ETA: It shouldn't be a word order issue as it should parse the whole title, but even if it doesn't, there is 1 result where my search criteria is literally the first 3 words of the title.
Thanks for the tag @simply-the-best-for-you! I did have a nice weekend and I will be off next week for a family reunion. 😊
I was able to recreate this search issue as well though, and I've submitted a ticket to our tech team. I'll let you know what they come back with.
@coolections wrote:They must have fixed the misspelled problem. I typed plink variety pack and received 8 results.
Not fixed here. I just tried it again & I receive EXACTLY the same results as I do in my OP. 0 Results for plink variety pack & 894 results for pink variety pack, even though there are 7 results that match my critera.
Nothing has been fixed! Not sure what you mean by "misspelled problem" . The problem has nothing to do with misspellings.
Thank you @eburtonlab I'm aware of quotes, etc. I was a developer for many years & know my way around search. I'm just pointing out that as a buyer, who is most likely NOT familiar with the nuanced ins & outs of search, these are very confusing results. Hell, they're very confusing results for someone like me who speaks Boolean LOL.
I think you're right about the grouping of KW's being inconsisten, but again, this is something the average buyer wouldn't have a clue about. Still pretty crazy that one of my results has the first 3 words of the title EXACTLY matching the criteria I put in & it's not seen as a match.
<< When a search keyword returns few results, but a slight variation produces more results, eBay will often substitute the more popular keyword. This can be useful if the searcher has made a typo, but the substitution is not always wanted or helpful, as you indicate. >>
I seem to recall eBay usually ASKING me if I wanted them to search for the more popular word. You're right, it is a double edged sword b/c if I've made a typo, it's helpful. But, they s/b erring on the side of correct, not of assuming you made a typo. Have you seen it before where they just substitue the more popular word, like they did here, rather than ASK you if you want to sub the word? That was new to me, but I don't search as a buyer that often.
I'm just pointing out that as a buyer, who is most likely NOT familiar with the nuanced ins & outs of search, these are very confusing results. Hell, they're very confusing results for someone like me who speaks Boolean LOL.
Understood -- I agree with you.
Have you seen it before where they just substitue the more popular word, like they did here, rather than ASK you if you want to sub the word?
Yes, eBay will perform the unasked-for substitution by default, then provide an option to see the original version, if you notice that line at the top of the results:
I believe that in the distant past, eBay would have suggested an alternative search keyword and would have told you the number of results found for the alternative, but would still have provided the original search results by default.
This default behavior was changed at some point long ago, leading to much confusion for those who had saved or bookmarked searches for relatively obscure keywords when those searches suddenly started returning entirely different results in great volumes. It is unfortunately all-too-common for a minor change on eBay's part to suddenly and without warning break an old search that had worked fine up to that point.
