The "indexing delay" is not real

[thishauntedhoard]

Can anyone explain exactly what this "indexing delay" is? It appears that this is an excuse rather than what is actually happening on the back end. If I list an item from this account, items appear in search results within 7-10 minutes, always. 100% of the time. If I list the same exact item from my other account with the listing identical in every way, it does not appear for over 12 hours and at that point it's so far down in the results nobody sees it. So why do listings from this account show up immediately, but listings from the other account don't show for 12+ hours? If indexing actually took that long, the listings I post from this account would not show within minutes. What is the determining criteria here? Does it have to do with seller level? Rating? There seems to be no rhyme or reason for it.

[blurryrobot]

Very interesting.  Do the two accounts have a similar number of listings?  

And is this delay always the same, every day, for both accounts, with that difference always being there?

How often do you list items for sale with the account that has the 12 hour delay, and how often do you list items for sale from the account that has the short delay?

[mam98031]

Not everything on Ebay is done in real time.  For example, when we change a listing.  We, as the seller that made the change can see whatever we did to the listing, but everyone else can't until Ebay updates the site.  If you changed the listing just short of a scheduled update, we can see these things happen faster, but it can work the other way too.

Ebay is simply too big to have everything on real time.

[luckythewinner]

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@thishauntedhoard wrote:

Can anyone explain exactly what this "indexing delay" is? It appears that this is an excuse rather than what is actually happening on the back end. If I list an item from this account, items appear in search results within 7-10 minutes, always. 100% of the time. If I list the same exact item from my other account with the listing identical in every way, it does not appear for over 12 hours and at that point it's so far down in the results nobody sees it. So why do listings from this account show up immediately, but listings from the other account don't show for 12+ hours? If indexing actually took that long, the listings I post from this account would not show within minutes. What is the determining criteria here? Does it have to do with seller level? Rating? There seems to be no rhyme or reason for it.

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My admittedly anecdotal experience indicates the time to be indexed varies by seller, by category, by risk, and by chance. 

I have had listings take 5 minutes, a couple hours, or almost a day to appear. 

[partfinds]

It used be immediate now they delay and sometimes delay for days.  Yikes! I would like to know what the REAL criteria is as well. Who is allowed to sell item in realtime ?

it is very unmotivating to list and not seeing any impovement in impressions views and traffic.

[mam98031]

I've been here a long time and I don't remember it ever being immediate.  Unless it was in the very early years when Ebay didn't have no where near the listings we have now.

[inhawaii]

When ever I list something it shows up and is searchable usually within minutes.

I always hear that it can take up to 24 hours, but that's never the case for me. 

[chapeau-noir]

I recall as early as 2002 items taking up to 12 hours to index - it was from time to time but it did happen.  I've had things usually index pretty quickly - the only way to really tell is to search incognito, but some things have sold in minutes of listing.

Honestly, I think it has to do with site traffic, cohort of the listed items (supersaturated or not), indexing speed and a bunch of other stuff that who knows. I have similar questions about ghost listings and listings that ebay loses sometimes only 25-30 days after I've listed them.  This is such a huge site.

[thishauntedhoard]

All of my listings are immediate. I just posted an item 2 minutes ago and it is already showing in searches. I'd like to know how ebay determines which accounts get immediate listings and which have to wait the 12-48 hours. If I list items from the other account, they take almost 15 hours to show in results. It really doesn't make any sense.

[mam98031]

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@thishauntedhoard wrote:

All of my listings are immediate. I just posted an item 2 minutes ago and it is already showing in searches. I'd like to know how ebay determines which accounts get immediate listings and which have to wait the 12-48 hours. If I list items from the other account, they take almost 15 hours to show in results. It really doesn't make any sense.

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I doubt very seriously it is by account.  I just think that is an assumption some sellers make.

[retro_entertainment_collectibles]

From a software engineering aspect there can be numerous reasons, I mean many many.

If it were something that's constant/consistent it'd be likely that listings are being queued into a separate database whereby a host of filters examine the data to pass or deny based on results.  Should data pass then likely it sit until some specified time whereby all such records in the database from hosts of sellers be sent to commit to the various databases associated with the stores (categories) and since this enterprise level computing, commits accordingly to the indexing database(s) and from there need propagate across the network accordingly...  Albeit there are many ways to do such things.  The above for example might be assigned to an account with return problems, chargebacks, claims of NAD's or even just too many "reports" leading to possible account issues that the seller is never aware of, users who use the report link.

Other aspects can be re-indexing whereby servers are taking data off RDBM's to be sent over to archival RDBMS and then compression of said databases, index RDBMS and repropagation throughout the stores.  These processes can fault at time's and meanwhile systems are queuing new listings up for inclusion resulting in basically a backlog of work to be done.

They'll be processes running on daily, weekly, monthly cron jobs doing all numbers of things to generate statistics across the RDBM's both active and archival to yield hosts of data in everything from sales, not sales, counterfeits, RDBM's performance on and on...

It's all highly complex engineering and RDBM's relationships across a highly complex distributed network(s) architecture(s) and again there are varieties of ways to accomplish things.  More often than not truthfully what appears simple on the outside looking in when it comes to software and/or database engineering is far far far more complex than most folks fathom.  If for example you were to look at and have the "Guru Bible of Software engineering" within you're head you're smartphone you'd say, "Oh my gosh!  I never realized how crazy complex this little thing is," no matter it be a state of the art phone or a 10 year old cheapie.

Now eBay isn't like say some shopping cart application you might install at some web hosting firm albeit some of those are quite complex as well and share some similar processes.  This is enterprise level and that's a whole new ball game as there are no singular machines that can handle the loads so it's all within in a distributed architecture of hardware which makes the software far far far more complex.

This is why you can't buy an "eBay" out of the box ready to install on some server leased from a hosting firm, its all proprietary, same with say Amazon... Yet, Amazon for example DOES lease aspects of their proprietary software and stacks as well the leasing of services via Amazon Web Services (AWS).  For example last I knew AWS provides Target Inc.'s online presence along with hosts of others.

All said and done I can only make very and I do mean VERY rough guesses at eBay's hardware/network topology/software/database infrastructure so don't take anything said above as software engineering gospel.  eBay is a literal city of engineering that appears rather simple outside looking in but the one thing I can 110%+10% assure you of is its extremely and I do mean extremely complex.

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[bluestardiecast]

From my experience here listing since 1998 - most of my listings have always been "indexed" into their system rather quickly with most under 5 minutes. I have done custom lots for buyers and again they can usually find & purchase with no problem rather immediately. I haven't kept a list over the years but there seem to be certain products that kick another "index review" issue before the listing can be seen and searched as a live listing.

Since we list a majority of diecast toy cars the one car we always have issues now getting "indexed" right away are any Nissan Skyline models. Most of these listings seem to take at least 24 hours to get into the eBay system to be live and be found via any search. The listing will only show up in our Active Auction listings right away, but will not show even for us if we search in our Seller Hub or our Store, and definitely not for any Buyers. This is discouraging, but it may be an item that needs secondary approval since any Skyline listing will attract more page views than similar vehicles. I would have said possibly Nissan manufacturer approval but we haven't noticed other Nissan models with the same delay and those listed right before or after a Skyline listing show up in the normal 2-5 minutes or quicker.

It would be nice to have a published list of items / titles that cause indexing issues but will start our own list to see what items have consistent delays. 

[coolections]

My guess it depends on the category and how many other sellers are selling the same thing. I rarely ever sell something that has more than 60 already listed so my items appear almost instantly. I wonder since you say you have two accounts and are listing the "same thing" if that is the reason. I am not sure but I think that may be against Ebay policy.

[mam98031]

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@bluestardiecast wrote:

From my experience here listing since 1998 - most of my listings have always been "indexed" into their system rather quickly with most under 5 minutes. I have done custom lots for buyers and again they can usually find & purchase with no problem rather immediately. I haven't kept a list over the years but there seem to be certain products that kick another "index review" issue before the listing can be seen and searched as a live listing.

Since we list a majority of diecast toy cars the one car we always have issues now getting "indexed" right away are any Nissan Skyline models. Most of these listings seem to take at least 24 hours to get into the eBay system to be live and be found via any search. The listing will only show up in our Active Auction listings right away, but will not show even for us if we search in our Seller Hub or our Store, and definitely not for any Buyers. This is discouraging, but it may be an item that needs secondary approval since any Skyline listing will attract more page views than similar vehicles. I would have said possibly Nissan manufacturer approval but we haven't noticed other Nissan models with the same delay and those listed right before or after a Skyline listing show up in the normal 2-5 minutes or quicker.

It would be nice to have a published list of items / titles that cause indexing issues but will start our own list to see what items have consistent delays. 

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@bluestardiecast 

If you are drawing that conclusion because you can see the listings, then that isn't accurate.  Sellers can see their own listing rather quickly, but if you go and do a search for them out in the wild, you won't likely see them unless you posted them within moments of a scheduled re-indexing on the site.

Reindexing is a real thing.  The site it too big to update over 2 Billion listings in real time for everyone to see.  Like I said a seller can see their own new listings and changes they made to listings rather quickly, especially on their Seller Hub under Active Listings.  But the entire site does not until after it is reindexed.

Indexing isn't caused because of some "issue".  It is a normal everyday thing.

[bluestardiecast]

I don't think you followed what I actually said in my post - I stated others (Buyers) can find my listings within 2-5 minutes after I list. I mentioned the listing shows immediately in my Active Auction listings in My Seller Hub but the ones that don't get "Indexed" right away are not visible in My Store Listings, Seller's Other Items or even in Active Listings in Seller Hub search. I have tested this with another eBay ID to compare with what is visible with this ID - so this shows potential Buyers are seeing most all items in a very short time frame as has been the case for most of the 25 years we have been selling. 

I have done quite a few custom lot listings over the years and most all are visible with Title, Item or Item Number search for my Buyers in a quick time frame also, but there have been some that took nearly an hour, but never the 24 hour delay we are now seeing on the Skyline.  If you take a look at our current Auction listings, you will see 5 different Skyline listings all done on Thursday evening - there were 2 auctions listed before those 5 and 2 done just after - all of the other 4 were visible within the 2-5 minute time frame by checking with our other ID - we used a search with Item Number or by checking Other Items By Seller > Auctions - even auctions listed today were visible along with 60-70 store item listings done today - but the 5 Skylines did not appear "Active" for any kind of visibility until after 24 hours which was late this evening. We lost an entire New Item listing visibility for 24 hours if you were just doing a general search in the category with Newest Item first parameter. 

So, my general point stands that there is some kind of "Indexing Delay" for certain items as it is not because we are a New Seller or Low Performance Seller or limited in any way. I'm not sure if there is an official list of items that require more scrutiny, but it has happened on every Nissan Skyline listing we have done over the past few months. It could have been going on for longer and for other models, we just happened to notice this several months ago when listing something a potential buyer had interest in buying, so started keeping track every time we listed a Skyline and we will start testing more of our items on a continuing basis to see if others fall under the same delay.