eBay search results vs Google THIS IS WRONG

[siamjane8]

A friend just sent me a screen shot with these eBay search results for a 1969 Mercury cyclone car part. This has been going on for months and has not been resolved. You can't tell me that eBay search is working as intended! No wonder sales are down. eBay hardly ever shows relevant results! Search was for c9gy-16164-a. A very common ford part numbering system. It is the same on phone app and desktop results. eBay needs to do something.... Anything at this point about it's search engine!

eBay results:

 

Google results:

 

 

 

[allthingssurplus]

You are correct.  Today in order to locate 8 different computer parts, one I had listed, I had to first search Google and click on the eBay listing found there.  You know something is crazy crazy when you search on eBay for an item, find or maybe not find it, and what will always be with the search is a boat load of product you were never going to look for in the first place.  We are down 60% on eBay since 9/21.  eBay will never say there is a problem.  Its all good and everything they tell Sellers is clear as mud.  This is why eBay stock has gone from $80 to $42 in less than a year.  No its not the economy.  When the economy is bad sales on eBay are good.  People always need things and those can be found on eBay cheaper than market.  By the way we are a $2.4 mil business now only doing 12% of that on eBay due to their current practices.

[allthingssurplus]

How about doing some work and check Google against eBay in the search instead of blaming someone that has a real concern or have you drunk for the KoolAde machine eBay lives in.

[allthingssurplus]

People this guy has the correct point.  I don't care what you are looking for.  With Google you only have to put in very little info and the item will pop up.  With eBay on one of my listings the IT dept of eBay said the Buyer will have to search my exact title word for word to make it come up.  How crazy is that.  I had the P/N and Model number of the item in the title.  eBay could not fine it with the most important description that could be supplied by the Seller.  eBay search engine is not hurting sales it is killing sales.  All in the name of attempting to cram the entire platform onto the cell phone.  Which will never happen.  Can anyone tell me how I can manage 4000+ listings on the cell phone.  There is not any real brain power at eBay only stock market people.

[allthingssurplus]

Great correct answer

[allthingssurplus]

Why try to out guess an AI machine.  The search process has been perfected by many other platforms.  Why eBay feels the need to reinvent the wheel is arrogant.  Sellers are losing money.  eBay will never realize where the company profits come from, no not the Buyer.

[allthingssurplus]

Young man get real.  I can give you as many as you would want to look at.  The search does not work for selling.  Yes I'm sure it works as it is intended to by your programmer and management.  Just cause those folks say its working does not mean it does.  People are not complaining, people are screaming that their businesses and lively hoods are at stake.  Stop playing high school and fix this is.  Have Google do your search function, then it will work.

[coolections]

---

@a_c_green wrote:

---

---

Well, if I knew the part number I was looking for, as the OP did, I wouldn't bother adding extraneous extra wording, because either the part number is listed or it isn't.

---

@a_c_green   It is not extraneous to search for the actual item you are looking for, in fact it is of the utmost importance you do. That would work if you were searching on an auto parts site. This is Ebay and you should NEVER search by part number. Do you realize 99.9% of sellers do not list an item with just a part number? You would be missing 99.9% of all the available listings. Use Ebay as it is intended and type the name of the car and the name of the part, you will be amazed.

[coolections]

@allthingssurplus 

I am here to help you out, NEVER do that.  This is Ebay not google. They are not related and broke off from each other years ago. If you want to buy on Ebay search on Ebay. You are wasting your valuable time on a non issue.

[inhawaii]

I can search ANY of my 300 items on ebay and they all come up without any issues.

Every time I see someone here complaining about ebay's search it makes me scratch my head. 

[simply-the-best-for-you]

---

@allthingssurplus wrote:

People this guy has the correct point.  I don't care what you are looking for.  With Google you only have to put in very little info and the item will pop up.  With eBay on one of my listings the IT dept of eBay said the Buyer will have to search my exact title word for word to make it come up.  How crazy is that.  I had the P/N and Model number of the item in the title.  eBay could not fine it with the most important description that could be supplied by the Seller.  eBay search engine is not hurting sales it is killing sales.  All in the name of attempting to cram the entire platform onto the cell phone.  Which will never happen.  Can anyone tell me how I can manage 4000+ listings on the cell phone.  There is not any real brain power at eBay only stock market people.

---

The inconsistency is frustrating too.  I was in IT my entire working life, I've worked for one of the largest software co's in the world, so I know when I'm getting bogus search results.  I recently started a thread b/c I was searching for a specific item.  7 were found, but my results said 0 were found, though the first 7 items were what I was searching for.  I documented this with a screen shot & started a thread on 7/7/22 which can be found here: 

 https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Search-results-fail/td-p/33055821

I know search.  I know these results are wrong.  Today I see that Velvet from eBay updated the thread to say that Tech couldn't reproduce the results.   Sure enough, I try it & today it's working correctly.   So they dismiss the whole thing.  Well, it was NOT working right.  There is PROOF in my screen shot & everyone else who documented that day that they got the same results as me, but I'm sure it was chalked up to a user error b/c they could not replicate it.  Even thought it was NOT a user error.  It was faulty that day.  It's not faulty today.  Tomorrow?  Who knows. 

ETA:  Oops, responded to the wrong post, but the info still stands. 

[allthingssurplus]

What are you talking about I'm a Seller not a Buyer and a large one at that.  When we lose 60% of our sales due to the platform that is a problem.  Shame on you for scolding someone that has done millions of dollars in 22.5 years on this platform.  The points raised are valid and require ligit responses.  Not you're being and a bad boy and just do as your told.  This is about selling and selling is being  stopping on eBay brecause of the crazy search. There are problems and you should hear the persons that pay you.  Being insane is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  If you can't search an item by its part number or model number without all the other additional words, that is a huge problem.  The guy that started this sells car parts.  I sell computer parts.  He an I are having the same issues.  I have confirmed this with Seller all over the world.  Auto and Computers are a large part of the eBay business.  We are saying the search is not working.  Believe it

[stainlessenginecovers]

I'm not sure you understood what I was saying.

Ebay is RIGHT. Google is WRONG. 

If you put in just 555-112 on Google; you get the entire 1st page of 'Dorman' products. Great, if that is what I was looking for... but WRONG if I was looking for one of the other dozen items that use that same numbering system (either in part, or as is)

There's other Car Parts (Porsche, which uses PART of that number in the door panel, Watch Parts, Trimmer Line, LED Screen replacement, Trading Card etc.. 

All on the first page. 

[gdiesel70]

The word “account” is a blacklisted search term on the mobile app. Any phrase or word with “account” in it  is also hidden in search on the mobile app. So that’s a lot of listings that are not searchable for mobile users. No clue what that’s about. 

I had a book “American Railway Accounting”,  “The Accountant Blu Ray”,  “Accounting for Dummies” and an art print “The Accountant” by Robert Marble, that when searched do not come up in mobile search results. Last time I checked, it was fine on desktop.

That’s my complaint.

 

[gdiesel70]

I don’t know why eBay doesn’t blur NSFW gallery images, that would be a good feature to implement, IMO. Imagine some poor guy looking up car parts at work and naked women appear on the screen. 

[quicksilverdiecast]

Do not forget that ebay also tries to force you to jump thru their hoops (not always beneficial to sellers) in order to gain more exposure during search!