Seller with 35k+ Listings Inadvertently Flooding (Gaming?) Search Due to CrazyLister Error

[berserkerplanet]

While searching for "cross pen holder" (no quotes) I stumbled across a seller selling cosmetics whose listings are showing up in the search results.

That basic search (ending soonest, US only, include description) returned 136097 results, repeated the search with same search terms (ending soonest, default location, DON'T include description) returned returned the expected 79 results.

That particular seller isn't the only one - I saw at least one other, and I suspect there may be many more.

They are using CrazyLister, which appears to have blown up and is inserting the descriptions as raw HTML in the description area (not sure why - an extra rogue HTML tag maybe?). That causes Cassini to return search results for ANYTHING that matches in that mess including all the HTML content. In this case it's mostly triggering on the word "cross" in all the "cross promotion" comments and tags in the HTML (some others are the usual keyword spamming)

This is a problem for some other sellers, besides the ones using CrazyLister. If not user error, then CrazyLister has issues, and those seller's listings are useless with gibberish descriptions. Other sellers are affected if those messed up listings flood search results with totally irrelevant results (would only affect searches with commonish search term(s) that appear in CrazyLister HTML tag names and attributes)

(checked in FF3.6.24, FF31, and Opera Mini on my phone - all the same so very very unlikely it's client side browser related)

I contacted the smaller seller, but the 35k listings seller has messaging turned off (12k+ feedback seller, so of course 🙂

BTW, the feedback count in search results bug I pointed out a while back (that everyone ignored) turns out to not just be on seller specific searches - I noted it here in this search today (since there is page after page of the same seller's items showing in the results with all manner of feedback counts attached to the results for that seller).

[dhbookds]

I did the cross pen holder search and came up with 113

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=Cross+pen+holder&_sacat=0

[dhbookds]

oops.......didn't include description.........  that's 157,000

[cargo11]

Perhaps you could add this in the technical issues Discussion board - nothing anyone here can help out with.  IN the search engine all sellers (or the corrupt ones) will try new things to get their 1000's of items to appear on every page in the hopes of sales - when all it does is get buyers frustrated enough to look elsewhere.

[berserkerplanet]

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oops.......didn't include description.........  that's 157,000

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Sounds about right without "US Only" filter.

Did you look at any of them? Do you see the mangled descriptions too?

Do you see the whacked out feedback counts for sellers in the search results? (you have to have your search pages customized to show seller info to see it)

[berserkerplanet]

I thought about it, but it really isn't an eBay tech issue - it's a problem with CrazyLister as far as I can see - which makes it essentially user error. Someone using CrazyLister and having problems can take the lead on it and report it via Tech Issues or directly to CrazyLister folks.

My title may have implied nefarious intent, but I can't say. Seems kind of stupid to mangle 35,000 listing descriptions making them unreadable except to a few who dig deep, just to get visibility. Then again, wouldn't discount it as a possibility.

[penguins_dont_fly]

<<Do you see the whacked out feedback counts for sellers in the search results? (you have to have your search pages customized to show seller info to see it)>>

I noticed the feedback count thing a few months ago on my own listings.

The feedback that shows in search results is the feedback at the time listed ... it is static until you open the listing 😞

[emerald40]

Do people actually search with the description box checked.

I did once and it was a waste of time as pretty much all did not fit what I was looking for.

[berserkerplanet]

Most often no, but sometimes it helps because many sellers don't put needed info in the titles. Especially when looking for lots or very specific items with multiple specifications.

Using the "search description" filter ends up being a tradeoff between too many useless results and missing out on good finds because of seller error not using title space effectively. Totally depends on the item.

I don't search titles by default, but once in a while, depending on how I search it ends up checked by the gremlins or because I launched a new keyword search off a previous search that had it checked (due to few returned results) and forgot to uncheck it until the first set of results (with unrelated junk) came back. I think that's how I stumbled across the CrazyLister issue in the OP.