Vexing eBay listing problem - three listings that are there but cannot be found via search

[knifeaholic]

I have a vexing problem – I have three items (out of 745 items total) that are completely unresponsive to Ebay keyword searches.

I sell about 250 to 300 listing a month, and I list about the same number every month.

When I look at my total “Active Listings” … eBay says that I have 745 listings.

So far so good.

I have one exact stock-related keyword that is in every description.

When I do a global keyword search for that keyword in the item descriptions, … then eBay says that I only have 742 listings ( I use this keyword search all the time for truing up my listings, and it always works...til now).

Likewise, when I do keyword searches of all my items based on keywords specific to these three items, unique words that are in the title and/or description of these three items, nothing comes up – zero listings found.

Just out of desperation, I ended the listings, deleted the ended listings, and I recreated each of the three listings from scratch.

After waiting an hour or so for things to settle, tried again, exact same results.  No listings found. Just for these three.

Any ideas as to why this would be happening?

There is nothing different or unusual about these items (not that that should make a difference) – similar items, same categories as 90% of my listings, very basic and similar to the ones that show up properly.

Thanks to whatever glitch eBay is having that is causing this, I have wasted my entire morning on this problem.

It started when I had a customer wanting to buy a particular item, I of course told him I had the one he was looking for, but then he could not see it via search.

The three listings DO show up for me ONLY when I search by my assigned SKU number, unique for each item. But I'm the only one who can see that, it would never do any good for buyer searches anyway.

[stainlessenginecovers]

We need the 'keyword' and the item numbers that are NOT showing so we can see to make any comment

[krazzykats]

Possibly duplicate titles (whether for the same item or not) .

[albertabrightalberta]

When I click to see all your listings, I'm seeing 742. 

[luckythewinner]

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@stainlessenginecovers wrote:

We need the 'keyword' and the item numbers that are NOT showing so we can see to make any comment

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It's always baffled me why sellers bother to come here with problems about finding items their in search and then never identify the items or how they are searching. 

[albertabrightalberta]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

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@stainlessenginecovers wrote:

We need the 'keyword' and the item numbers that are NOT showing so we can see to make any comment

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It's always baffled me why sellers bother to come here with problems about finding items their in search and then never identify the items or how they are searching. 

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Is it possible that @knifeaholic doesn't know which 3 items are missing? If someone has 10 listings, 3 of which aren't showing, it's easy to figure out what's missing but our of 700+? That's a long process of elimination.

[knifeaholic]

Ok thanks...

Ebay item numbers are:

255633996895

255633993540

255634018715

The keyword that I use that is in my description is GroupD.

Yes, no space between "Group" and "D" since eBay's search won't handle a string, just a solid word.

One buyer told me that the item was not found by searching for the eBay item #.

BTW, I had more listings that were scheduled go live, so my count is way oever 745 now.

[mtgraves7984]

I just searched your title listings by GROUPD and got 0 results. I don't know how to search your descriptions , though. 🤔

[bashort]

I searched one by ebay # and nothing came up.

I have had this happen several times for unknown reasons but in my case if I do any sort of edit they will show back up

[inhawaii]

Well you're right. I can't find it under "groupd".

But why on earth would any potential buyer search for "groupd"?

It might be a good idea to put the word "knife" in the title since it is a knife.

[knifeaholic]

Just to be clear, the term GroupD is a search term that I put in the description only for my own use in truing up my store listings - actual vs what I think I have. No buyer is going to search for that.

Two of the listings each have Kane Cutlery in the title - those listings fail to show up when I do a search for "Kane Cutlery", even tough that are listed and each has an eBay item number.  Those are the first two eBay item numbers that I previously posted.

[lacemaker3 · Accepted solution]

@knifeaholic 

2 of those listings were revised earlier today, and it can take up to 24 hours before a listing is indexed (and searchable) after it is either listed or revised. This could be part of the problem.

Searching for eBay item numbers is never very effective. eBay stopped that kind of search years ago, and at the time we were told to use a URL like these instead, and paste the item # at the end in place of the item #s shown (no spaces). All these listings open fine this way.

	Start time (EDT)	Revised (EDT)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/255633996895	7/17/2022 9:05:07	7/17/2022 9:39:03
https://www.ebay.com/itm/255633993540	7/17/2022 9:02:09
https://www.ebay.com/itm/255634018715	7/17/2022 9:24:32	7/17/2022 9:36:53

All of those were only started a few hours ago, so at this point they probably aren't indexed yet. Usually indexing is very fast, but sometimes it can take up to the full 24 hours or more before the indexing is complete. It's impossible to predict when items will be delayed, but it seems that high-priced or potentially high-fraud items may take longer.

As for the listings you closed, they are not shown in the completed items search by design. eBay only shows listings that ended organically in the search, because the prices for items that were ended early may not be representative of the actual prices or values.

At this point, we will have to wait and give those listings at least 24 hours to be indexed, and then check again to see if they are visible and searchable by then.

[lacemaker3]

@knifeaholic 

At the moment, I see the following number of results when I search your listings:

• 858 with no keywords
• 858 for a title/description search for "zebu"
• 858 for a title/description search for "antler"
• 742 for a title/description search for "groupd"
• 0 for title/description search for "Kane" (the brand for two of the listings in question)
• 0 for title/description search for "robeson 623875" (the third listing)

[knifeaholic]

Ok thank you much, I appreciate your detailed reply and info.

I had not thought of it taking that long, with as much as I list all the time, I have never had it take this long.

I have always understood that any new listing is not searchable right away, but in all my previous listing experience, I have never had it take more than a hall hour or so (maximum) for a listing to be full searchable.

In fat, normally my internal keyword search finds new listings almost immediately, with maybe 15 to 30 minutes before buyers can find them.

Why these three are taking longer, no idea...so as you say, wait and see. 

[ladyindecadence]

I have had this exact same thing happen to me. I spent days trying to figure out what was happening. I ended up finding that the listings had somehow been duplicated. And at that point neither listing would properly index in the search. Once I removed one of the duplicates the other listing properly indexed in about 24 hours.