Something weird in search. Is it broken?

[glasser]

So, I posted two items this week (not a big-time seller prefer selling fewer higher priced items). In both cases when searching by a critical key word, neither appeared in a sort by newly listed. I often double check once listed just in case there is an error or something and can always find them this way.  I know can be some time lag, although I have never experienced it. Plus, in one of the searches, which I have been doing for over 20 years, it is unusual to have more than 10 new items a day so not like it's a mega category.

And not just me. I had been looking at apiece that was an auction an only been posted for about 10 hours. Forgot to watch it so no problem I'll just go by newly listed.  Didn't appear that way. Was able to eventually find it.

What is going on???

[inhawaii]

Please give us an example of item(s) that are not coming up in a ebay search.

[bashort]

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@glasser wrote:

So, I posted two items this week (not a big-time seller prefer selling fewer higher priced items). In both cases when searching by a critical key word, neither appeared in a sort by newly listed. I often double check once listed just in case there is an error or something and can always find them this way.  I know can be some time lag, although I have never experienced it. Plus, in one of the searches, which I have been doing for over 20 years, it is unusual to have more than 10 new items a day so not like it's a mega category.

And not just me. I had been looking at apiece that was an auction an only been posted for about 10 hours. Forgot to watch it so no problem I'll just go by newly listed.  Didn't appear that way. Was able to eventually find it.

What is going on???

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It is definitely broken!

I have a item that was a good seller a week ago but now it has became unsearchable.

363878738795

it is a 200 amp lever bypass meter socket.

If I do a search for "meter", "200 amp", "socket", "Lever bypass", and my item will show up.

If I do a search for "200 amp meter socket", "lever bypass meter socket", "200 amp lever bypass meter socket" and nothing.

Basically the item is unsearchable using  the most common search string for this item. But a week or so ago it was working

[glasser]

Kind of the same for me I sometime sell art glass called Loetz.  Prior to this week that's I'll I'd need to search by and sort by newly listed to see my item. Now, nothing, nada, nyet....

[eburtonlab]

A search for 200 amp lever bypass meter socket is steered into the following category:

Business & Industrial > Electrical Supplies & Equipment > Electrical Boxes, Panels & Boards > Electrical Boxes & Enclosures

Your items is listed here:

Home & Garden > Home Improvement > Electrical Supplies > Home Electrical Panels, Boxes & Circuit Breakers > Home Circuit Breakers

If you want your item to appear in that search, you must list in the former category rather than the latter, even if you think the latter category is more appropriate.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@eburtonlab  Offhand, I can't remember the name ebay has for this, but yes, this is a long standing search "improvement".  I hadn't run into it for a while, but did the other day...and one thing I noticed, doing the same search over the course of a couple days....ebay sometimes automatically transferred my search from "all categories" to its chosen category, but other times, it did not. I have no idea why the difference...a glitch, or something built into the algo.

But this is one explanation for why an item might show up in one search, and not in another search, even though searcher is using the same search string. 

My suggestion: ALWAYS keep an eye on the category section when doing a search. You can never know when ebay will decide "all categories" is too broad, and will delimit your search to its own chosen category.

[bashort]

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@eburtonlab wrote:

A search for 200 amp lever bypass meter socket is steered into the following category:

Business & Industrial > Electrical Supplies & Equipment > Electrical Boxes, Panels & Boards > Electrical Boxes & Enclosures

Your items is listed here:

Home & Garden > Home Improvement > Electrical Supplies > Home Electrical Panels, Boxes & Circuit Breakers > Home Circuit Breakers

If you want your item to appear in that search, you must list in the former category rather than the latter, even if you think the latter category is more appropriate.

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not buying that.

Tell me why I can do a search for a single word in the title and get it to show but if I add the word "meter" to any string that did work that kills it, how does category affect that?

And this item is in the ebay catalog and I am using the category that ebay put it in in. 

[bashort]

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@eburtonlab wrote:

A search for 200 amp lever bypass meter socket is steered into the following category:

Business & Industrial > Electrical Supplies & Equipment > Electrical Boxes, Panels & Boards > Electrical Boxes & Enclosures

Your items is listed here:

Home & Garden > Home Improvement > Electrical Supplies > Home Electrical Panels, Boxes & Circuit Breakers > Home Circuit Breakers

If you want your item to appear in that search, you must list in the former category rather than the latter, even if you think the latter category is more appropriate.

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The thing that is really making me very mad is that I entered the upc from this item and there was a ebay catalog page for it and I used everything from that.

So you are telling me that ebay is such a incompentend company that they set one category for the catalog page but then force all searches for said item to a different category?

[bashort]

You are correct, I switched categories and it now shows up.

Funny I tested that yesterday and it did not work.

[inhawaii]

Hmmm maybe ebay is not broken?

[ittybitnot]

Tell me why I can do a search for a single word in the title and get it to show but if I add the word "meter" to any string that did work that kills it, how does category affect that?

@bashort 

From my experience of many years here @eburtonlab is a really smart person and likely more help explaining technical issues.  The idea  of "forced category navigation" (or whatever it is called) has been going on for years.  It was brought to light years ago on the forums here with the old "frying pan" thread, where people provided screen shots/discussions/ etc. on why items were "hidden".  

According to the "blues" the search returns were not hidden, but they elected to show ONLY those  from a category that produced the most sales.   So if you had a "vintage" version of the said frying pan, it would not be shown with the usual search string (even if the word vintage was used) simply because most sales occurred in the "Home and Garden" as opposed to "vintage cookware".  eBay elected NOT to show items in the vintage cookware by forcing results from the category with the most sales.   eBay also proclaimed showing buyers too many choices "confused them", like buyers are inherently stupid or something.... 

One would expect to see them all, but a buyer has to look to see if their search was placed in a forced navigation category instead.  Generally, buyers would not even think to do this, thus the vintage frying pans generally went unsold.  

Fast forward ten years, eBay is still at it.   

One redeeming feature of you listing your product in "business and industrial", it will probably be immune to any Money Back Guarantee claims should you actually sell one. 

[eburtonlab]

Offhand, I can't remember the name ebay has for this, but yes, this is a long standing search "improvement". I hadn't run into it for a while, but did the other day...and one thing I noticed, doing the same search over the course of a couple days....ebay sometimes automatically transferred my search from "all categories" to its chosen category, but other times, it did not. I have no idea why the difference...a glitch, or something built into the algo.

I have seen it referred to as Automatic (or Implicit) Category Navigation or Keyword-to-Category expansion. It is one of several Search Expansion features along with Keyword Substitution and Keyword-to-Item Specifics matching.

Some info about it in this old eBay Ireland help page:

https://www.ebay.ie/pages/help/search/search-commands.html

Using search commands such as quotes, exclusions or parentheses to perform a Boolean "OR" search can be used to bypass the category change and force a search of all categories.

My suggestion: ALWAYS keep an eye on the category section when doing a search. You can never know when ebay will decide "all categories" is too broad, and will delimit your search to its own chosen category.

An excellent suggestion. eBay may update which keywords point to which categories from time to time.

Sellers should try searching for their items as a potential buyer might using general keywords, and see where the search ends up. If the item is not listed in that category, it will not appear in that search by default.

[ten_o_nine]

But why should this really matter to a buyer? If I wanted and searched for something, I should see the match no matter what category, this just made it worse, buyers don't know categories like sellers, they show you under "less keywords" but Goodluck.

[eburtonlab]

One redeeming feature of you listing your product in "business and industrial", it will probably be immune to any Money Back Guarantee claims should you actually sell one.

Only certain sub-categories of Business and Industrial such as Heavy Machinery are exempt from the Money Back Guarantee because there is another guarantee for those items called Business Equipment Purchase Protection that covers certain items over $1000 in that category.

[ittybitnot]

My suggestion: ALWAYS keep an eye on the category section when doing a search. You can never know when ebay will decide "all categories" is too broad, and will delimit your search to its own chosen category.

@eburtonlab 

Is that even visible to buyers using  a mobile app?  when results are from only a certain category?  is there an option to 'see all'?