Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Ebay Search Results - Scary 'Results'


Yesterday I made a disturbing discovery while doing some research on ebay. I was preparing a listing for Mens Levis Jeans Size 42x30. I did an ebay search to check and see where prices were at. What happened shocked me.

My search term was "levis 560 42x30" in the mens jeans, used. That brought up 30 items. I then added -black as I didn't want to see the black jeans. When I did that the total results went from 30 to 7. Even though there were only 5 pair of black jeans. So 18 pairs of blue jeans are disappearing from the search when I take out the black jeans. What?? I took a couple of screen shots to prove it and tried it several times to see if I could duplicate it. This is disturbing.

I imagine this error is not just occurring for levis jeans. I plan to test it out some more today. But if it's true and all kinds of searches are affected and items get kicked out of search results when they shouldn't then mine and your items are probably not being seen even when someone specifically searches for them and there aren't even a ton of results.

In the pictures below look at the number of search results before and after I subtract black. Try this search yourself. Do you get the same results? Can you explain this to me? Am I missing something?

I wouldn't be as disturbed if this was a large search with hundreds or thousands of results. But a small search with only 30 items? That should be simple and cut and dried.


 Search Term "Levis 560 42x30"


Search Term "Levis 560 42x30 -black"





Edited to Add:

Maybe I'm spending a little too much time and energy on this? I should be listing instead you say? 

After some more testing using other items and other search terms I figured out that it is the minus that is the main factor in this weirdness. Not the color black or any word you put after the minus. Do a search that returns less than 100 items so you can see them all on one page and get a quick idea of what is happening. Now add a minus something to your same search term. This should disappear a lot of the original results. You can minus something that doesn't even make sense. For example search "pyrex polka dot bowls". My search turns up 31 results. Now add -jeans. Twenty eight listings disappear. Now try -orange which is a sensical search. Again 28 listings disappear and the same three remain. So what if your listing is the one that disappears no matter what search term is put after a minus? Although as Queen of Fifty Cents pointed out in the comments a lot of people don't use the minus sign in their searches I think there are still plenty of people who do use it. How about you? Do you use minus when you are searching ebay?? Below I've posted a screen shot where ebay tells us how to use the minus sign. 









12 comments:

  1. I'll be interested to see the results of your further testing. Did you try doing a word search for 'black' in any of the listings that disappeared when they shouldn't have? I'm just wondering if the seller used the word black to describe something else, or even if the word is part of their eBay name or something.

    I do question how many eBay buyers know to use the minus sign to take out s search term though. In my career as a librarian I taught many, many people how to search effectively, and very few already knew about the minus sign.

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    1. Great suggestion. I just did a word search in some of the ones that disappeared and the only instances of the word black were cross advertisements for other sellers black jeans. The thing is those were also in the listings that didn't disappear.

      I use the minus sign a lot but I've worked on computers for many years. I'm not surprised that a lot of people don't use it. It seems like a lot of people only learn the bare minimum to get by on computers.

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  2. I have never used a minus sign in searches. I am guessing it confuses the database.

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    1. Hi Tami,

      Thanks for your suggestion. After reading your comment I thought I should do some more digging on ebay to see if they mention using the minus sign in searches. Sure enough they actually tell you how to do it. I took a screen shot and added it to the post.

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  3. I always screw up something when I use the minus sign. Instead I go to advanced search and add to the box the words that I want to exclude. That usually works very well for me.

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    1. That works for me too but it's a lot quicker to just pop a minus up there. I'm worried about all the buyers using it. I posted a message on the ebay technical issues board. I'll update if I hear anything.

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  4. I always use the minus sign, but I use parentheses around it, no matter if it's one word or two. So, instead of -shoes, I would put -(shoes). or -(shoes,pants). Maybe you could try it with the parentheses and see if it makes a difference?

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    1. same thing with parentheses. good suggestion though.

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  5. I do both, sometimes the -, sometimes the advanced. Glad you noticed the discrepency Nancy.

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    1. Someone on the Scavenger Life duplicated the problem as well.

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  6. I definitely use the minus sign when searching (especially while researching what I'm about to list). I hope Ebay catches on! (And my sales have dropped off in Sept after a record month of August so I wonder if this is part of the problem?)

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    1. I think it would be good if everybody tested out the problem and posted a message on the ebay technical issues board. ebay technical issues or give them a call.

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