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:

 

 

 

[quicksilverdiecast]

Not entirely true as I enter MoPar and Mitsubishi part numbers all the time, and while I am NOT a google fan, it shows up there without me having to tell it it is a MoPar or Mitsu part, while it does NOT always do so on ebay...kinda like google has a better idea at search engines than ebay does on their own site....but this also beg to ask if google can pick it up from ebay why cannot a customer pick it up from ebay?

[theteamsetguy]

bryn_3145,

I don’t see anything in the OP’s search results that could I wouldn’t let my children see? It’s just a bunch of car parts. 

[theteamsetguy]

There are many sellers who put female models in their pictures on eBay. What else is new? 

[coolections]

@allthingssurplus  With all the experience you really need to learn Ebay search. You are competing with a gazillion other seller thus the main reason why it is hard for you to get sales. Continue doing what you do and continue to complain or learn how to correctly type a title so buyers will find your stuff. Ebay search works fine of you make a title buyers can find.

[allthingssurplus]

For 2 decades I have had no issue in listing my product and it finding Buyers.  My previous eBay company from 2005 to 2011 was bring in $3mil+ on eBay.  Don't think we were having issue listing correctly.  Would you agree that if you have the part number of the item and the model number the platform search should be able to show the item without guiding it with a bunch of item specific words.  The idea is to sell not make a game out of it.  By the way have you sold near what I have on this platform, I doubt it.  I can't believe why some people want to make this harder than it needs to be.  Have you ever been a top 1% Seller, I doubt it.

[coolections]

I just checked and you have so many listings that do not even mention what the item is in the title. WOW.... I'm done here as you are the experienced one. Good luck.

[vvv4398]

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@siamjane8 wrote:

Lucky- the complaint is that ebay results matching fewer words show naked women instead of ford parts. Yes that is my complaint.  There are thousands of other ford/mercury parts with part #s only 1 digit off that logically are a better "results matching fewer words" than naked woman. Notice that those listings are all promoted also so the algorithm is forcing irrelevant PL in leu of actually real results that might be close- at least a car part. 

   Did you notice how google some how magically did not show naked woman but instead pages of ford and mercury car part listings even though they were not a perfect match.

This is effecting sales- people can not find what they are looking for on ebay even though it is probably there. 

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Oh heavens no!!!

I would sadly much rather that ebay show naked women instead of car parts 1 number off because buyers will BUY that car part and then return it because INAD or didn't fit or who knows...

Neither all problems nor all solutions are as straightforward as they might appear.

[the_fancy_fox]

I ran into this issue the other day. On my iPhone, ebay search results differ then how many an internet search finds.

however… when I search just for the part number you gave on eBay, I get one return and then a bunch of naked women pictures. 

[the_fancy_fox]

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@yuzuha wrote:

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@siamjane8 wrote:

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!

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It is working as intended. The search engine has no idea what a "c9gy-16164-a" is because you have given it no other helpful words to help narrow down the search. When it can't find a c9gy-16164-a, it starts looking around for other items that have similar strings of numbers and letters in the title, and what it found for "Results matching fewer words" were those photos.

This could very easily be solved by simply adding the word "Mercury" so the search engine knows that what you are looking for has to do with cars.

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And you get one return. If you add Ford to those numbers you get zero results.

On an internet search just the part number turns up more. 

It’s working as intended?? Google finds the parts with just the part number. Ebay does NOT.  Doesn’t seem to be working well at all.  Granted Google will pull up other items as well but it puts items with that part number first. 

So a buyer tries  ebay with just the part number and gets no returns except maybe naked women so they go to Google which shows them not only listings on ebay for that part but OTHER places as well where they can go to buy that part.  That’s a serious flaw on ebays part.  You don’t want your customers to go outside your platform. You lose customers that way. Once a customer loses brand loyalty you lose money.

Who’s going to train buyers how to search on eBay and tell them they have to put the word Mercury along with that part number? They don’t have to do that on an internet search.   If that part number is in the title or in the item specifics, search should pull it up. 

if Google can do it, ebay certainly should be. Even the River doesn’t have this problem. 

[siamjane8]

Exactly. Every other platform has a better search so it can be done. eBay has taken a search that worked amazing to one that is crippled by AI and promoted listings and trying to figure out what a buyer wants instead of just showing them what they tried in the box. eBay over monitized its search to the point of failure. 

[vvv4398]

Yes I do see that when searching only for "c9gy-16164-a" (without the quotes) you get one relevant result and then naked women, that is a bit disturbing but not because there's only the one result but the fact it's showing those women... I think that can be turned off in the settings / preferences but maybe it's just more sellers abusing the adult content feature (as in listing adult content as non-adult, somehow).

[meme6253]

Sounds Great, But every Category needs to be checked, because it is not only happening with car parts

[siamjane8]

How is it self created?    I did not put any words that would indicate i was interested in nude photography?  Also, those results cannot be reproduced on any other platform or search engine- only ebay shows nude photos when a ford or mercury or Lincoln part # in searched for.   As you probably already know- the ebay search is completely baffled by too many keywords so we have been trained to keep search terms to a minimum to help the search.    The part # is a singularly unique keyword for 1 item in the whole wide world- if its in the item specifics or title- dont you think it should come up?  The problem here is- that in the absence of that part # being present on ebay- the AI algorithm chooses to show nudes instead of similar vintage car parts.  This never used to happen until the category changes so it makes sense that the algorithms were not updated correctly.     If you think it is working as intended- you must also believe that a human programmer decided to show nudes in place of relevant car parts.

    I do not car about see the nudes myself- its kind of a running joke now amongst friends, but its only one example of why people cannot ever actually find the items they are looking for on ebay. 

[siamjane8]

Ok coolections- how would a "normal" person search for a part on ebay then?   Imagine- the actual part is in your hand but you dont know what it is or what it fits..... you want to find out and find comparable part in order to establish a price point to sell it. what do you search for?    The industry standard way to search parts is by the unique identifying part # for "normal" or otherwise people.   

    Btw have you tried searching for a part using just the make model and year on ebay! lol you will get the wrong part for sure because the ebay cross reference is so bad and wrong- it tells you that chevy parts "fits you vehicle" when you search for a ford part.   Collections- why dont you let actual sellers here have discussions about ebay since we actually know the pain points and are trying to find solutions- not just criticize others for their experiences or views. 

[siamjane8]

I happen to think you are correct about the product # that he uses in the title. Although no relation to ford part #s- it does resemble the first 4 digits so the ebay search algorithm is pulling his listings for lack of anything else......... Although I would say that there are thousands of actually similar ford car parts that would be a 100% more accurate to show instead of nudies.   There in lies the problem- it is offering nude pictures instead of other ford parts.  When it could not find a direct match for the 1969 cyclone part, google showed 1967 mercury parts as an option...... Which do you think more accurately represents what the buyers was searching for?

     It used to be that on ebay, you would find relevant results in the "other results" and actually buy something but since they changed the categories- the results are so bizarre and unrelated to original search.

But if you thinks its working great- more power to you and coollections and luckythewinner. As long as the cheerleaders are happy.