As of Oct 10th, saved search results are broken because of autocorrection or partial match

[obsidiansecurity]

As of Oct 10th... saves searches are horrible.
I search specific single word terms... and most of the time nothing would show up in a day.
Sometimes I'd only get a notification once a month when someone listed something with that title.

As of Yesterday and today I'm getting emails with tens of thousands of results that are not something I've saved as a search.  None of the "results" are my search query.  What they are is a partial match of the word. For example, if I search for "lindows" which is an old software product,  I'm getting 39,303 results for anything with the term "indows".
I didn't search for "indows" I searched for "lindows".
Do not ruin the saved search feature by giving me almost 40,000 false positives.

It was not like this before the 10th.

[eburtonlab]

I have seen some other complaints about keywords changing between pages of an existing search, so it is possible that something has changed about the way eBay's search has been working recently.

If the keyword substitution is making inappropriate changes or spelling substitutions, you may be able to work around it by putting your keyword in quotes.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=%22lindows%22&_sacat=0

Using quotes should force eBay to only search for literal matches with no substitutions of any keywords.

Or you can disable the autocorrect feature by appending the following to an existing search:

&_blrs=spell_auto_correct

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=lindows&_sacat=0&_blrs=spell_auto_correct

[obsidiansecurity]

This isn't an issue when searching the website. It's ONLY an issue with what's emailed to me from my saved search.

If I search "rhel" on ebay, I get 35 results.

My email notification for my "rhel" saved search had 10,072 results.

[eburtonlab]

My email notification for my "rhel" saved search had 10,072 results.

But when you go to your Save Searches page and use the saved search there, you only get the 35 results? If so, that is an odd problem.

If the saved search is giving you 10,000 results, you may have to modify your search. From time to time eBay changes things and old searches stop working. This can happen if a category changes, or item-specifics you were relying on change.

Otherwise, it might be worth trying to create a new search and see how many results are shown in the email update and whether those results match the saved search itself.

In the mean time, you may want to unsubscribe from the Save Search email updates temporarily, at least for those malfunctioning searches.

You may want to look into third party automated searches if you want to continue to receive email updates. Google automated searches eBay for some suggestions. Many sites offer a number free searches with email updates.

[obsidiansecurity]

"But when you go to your Save Searches page and use the saved search there, you only get the 35 results? If so, that is an odd problem."

Yup.  When I click through saved searches I get the correct number of results... but that's not what I'm getting in my email.  Hence why I'm reporting it here. 

VS

[maryesterday]

I've noticed the exact same problem that obsidiansecurity pointed out.

I have many saved searches with all kinds of queries and strings, and from the "Saved Searches" page they work as they are supposed to. But the emails I'm now getting are outrageously off, searching for strings and phrases that are similar to but not matching my saved search. For instance, searching for "solarus" will bring up hundreds of items containing "solaris" and so on. But it's only in the saved search email notifications.

[innolasers]

I have this same issue.  If this change applies to all users, this has to be negatively affecting tens of thousands of ebayers saved searches. It's a blockheaded thing to do, someone at ebay didn't think the impacts of their change through all use cases.

[anothereternity]

Just want to add myself onto this list. This is a HUGE problem for me. It’s have some very specific items with very specific names I’m searching for. Most items I get a result emailed to me maybe once every month or two. Now I’m getting dozens of emails a day for almost every search term I’ve saved showing hundreds of results that are unrelated. If this isn’t fixed in the next day or two I’ll need to delete every one of my saved searches to keep these from spamming my inbox which will pretty much make eBay useless to me. For example, I have searched a very unique figurine named “Frumitty”. In the past I think only twice in months have I gotten emails about it and they were the item I was looking for. In the last few days I’ve been receiving daily emails showing HUNDREDS of results for this search but the results are clothes and shoes and fruit preserves and NOT the item I’m looking for. The actual search returns 0 items which makes these emails useless and annoying.

[eburtonlab]

Rather than delete your saved searches, try simply unsubscribing from email updates for those searches that are giving you erroneous result emails.

Try creating a new search that is possibly less susceptible to such errors using keywords in quotes to force eBay to return literal results without substitution. Save the new search and see if the emails are more targeted. If so, use the new search -- at least until eBay fixes the issue with the old searches, at which point you can enable the email updates again, if necessary.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=%22frumitty%22&_sacat=0&LH_PrefLoc=2&rt=nc

[wsparkman]

I have also been having this problem - I have saved searches for “Worden” which is a brand name but now all my “newly added” emails assume I meant to search for the word “wooden”! Extremely aggravating!

[saappl13]

Same issue. Its now useless

[eckelc53]

This is happening to me for the first time --  a year after all of these posts.  Suddenly my saved searches are ignoring some of the search terms.  So BrandA nightgown xl is sending me all BrandA xl, or all nightgowns.  Terrible!!  I look for specific things.  Not "everything". 

[eburtonlab]

If a search that has worked well previously suddenly starts behaving badly, often the problem has something to do with a faulty keyword substitution or an inappropriate automatic category navigation issue.

As a workaround, you can bypass many of these sorts of search issues by putting one of your keywords in quotes. This forces eBay to bypass the "smart" features and to search for the literal keywords without any substitution or category switching. You may have to manually specify your category once again.

Using a desktop browser, find the "Feedback" icon that appears in the lower right corner of the search results page to let eBay page developers know about your search issues.

[t1merickson]

They just broke this again in the same way as last time. Please fix