eBay Search

[ten_o_nine]

If you search eBay using "Arcadia by SYRACUSE", without quotes you'll get 8 results, remove by and you get 207 results, so the word "by" eliminates 199 listings, some intelligent search engine, and they say they use AI.

[luckythewinner]

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@ten_o_nine wrote:

If you search eBay using "Arcadia by SYRACUSE", without quotes you'll get 8 results, remove by and you get 207 results, so the word "by" eliminates 199 listings, some intelligent search engine, and they say they use AI.

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Should they also return listings that include "Syracuse" and "By" but not "Arcadia"?

And should they also return listings that include "Arcadia" and "By" but not "Syracuse"?

And should they also return listings that include "Syracuse" but not "By" or "Arcadia"?

AI cannot read minds.

[ten_o_nine]

Then why do they encourage using all 81? if more means less?

[inhawaii]

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@ten_o_nine wrote:

Then why do they encourage using all 81? if more means less?

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If there was only one words in your title, "toy" for example. it would be a lot harder to find, wouldn't it?

[ten_o_nine]

Maybe I should use "L@@K", that brings 160,000+

[a_c_green]

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@ten_o_nine wrote:

If you search eBay using "Arcadia by SYRACUSE", without quotes you'll get 8 results, remove by and you get 207 results, so the word "by" eliminates 199 listings, some intelligent search engine, and they say they use AI.

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Just as a data point, when I search using "Arcadia by SYRACUSE" (without the Double Quotes) I see 177 listings. When I remove the word "by" I see 210.

[chapeau-noir]

That's how semantics work in search engines.  There are more instances of Acadia and Syracuse than there is of Acadia+by+Syracuse.

[ten_o_nine]

@a_c_green 

Hmmm

[a_c_green]

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@ten_o_nine wrote:

@a_c_green 

Hmmm

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Yeah, I have no explanation; I'm just reporting what I see:

"by" Included"by" Not Included

(My results above were ordered by Newly Listed rather than Ending Soonest, but I tested both ways and that setting had no effect on the results here.)

[eze-right1]

Yeah, but you'd think it would return 207 results with or without the 'by.' 

[redlinear]

Search used to used to find results based on the words in the title.
Now, it finds results based on the words in the title, the words in item specifics, which category was chosen, and possibly other criteria.

[nobody*s_perfect]

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@eze-right1 wrote:

Yeah, but you'd think it would return 207 results with or without the 'by.' 

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Nope; adding the term "by" narrows the search.  When you include the word "by" in the search, it means you want listings that have the word "by" in the title (or item specifics, etc.).  The search engine doesn't know the difference between a throwaway word like "by" versus some other third word like "red" or "plate." It looks for listings with all 3 terms.

[coolections]

Of course you get less results . That is how it is suppose to work. Buyers are not going to use the word "by" and you should not either.

[coolections]

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@ten_o_nine wrote:

Then why do they encourage using all 81? if more means less?

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They don't. They give you an "option" to do it and that would be the death of your selling career as no one would ever find anything of yours.

[yuzuha]

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@nobody*s_perfect wrote:

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Nope; adding the term "by" narrows the search.  When you include the word "by" in the search, it means you want listings that have the word "by" in the title (or item specifics, etc.).  The search engine doesn't know the difference between a throwaway word like "by" versus some other third word like "red" or "plate." It looks for listings with all 3 terms.

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Exactly. A search engine applies equal weight to all of the words in the search string, because it doesn't know when some of those words are technically unimportant to you-- it only knows what you typed in.

A much better search phrase to use would be "Syracuse Arcadia china."