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Ebay cherry picking search results?


NE146

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Just an example, but can anyone out there explain to me why searching for the term "Ozzy guitar tab" on Ebay, it doesn't pull up this auction even though it friggin has the words "Ozzy" "Guitar", and "Tab" all in its title??

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/324417595091?hash=item4b88cba6d3:g:r80AAOSw6N1f16he 

 

Not that I'm wanting this.. I'm just curious for the reason why!  If the search isn't working as expected it has me suspicious if I'm missing auctions I'd be interested in because I'm either not "searching correctly" or their algorithm just doesn't want me to see it. :lol:

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Example #2!

 

I manually bookmarked a Sega Saturn Mega Man 8 auction (which ended a couple days ago) https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sega-Saturn-Mega-Man-8-Anniversary-Collectors-Edition-Complete-Rare-/154434074259

 

However when searching for sold/completed items for "Saturn Mega Man", it doesn't show up, as if it doesn't exist? Am I doing it wrong? What's up with that ?

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2 hours ago, NE146 said:

Example #2!

 

I manually bookmarked a Sega Saturn Mega Man 8 auction (which ended a couple days ago) https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sega-Saturn-Mega-Man-8-Anniversary-Collectors-Edition-Complete-Rare-/154434074259

 

However when searching for sold/completed items for "Saturn Mega Man", it doesn't show up, as if it doesn't exist? Am I doing it wrong? What's up with that ?

I noticed that ebay likes to change the category on me randomly. Is it picking a specific category for you that that game is not in?

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8 hours ago, NE146 said:

Example #2!

 

I manually bookmarked a Sega Saturn Mega Man 8 auction (which ended a couple days ago) https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sega-Saturn-Mega-Man-8-Anniversary-Collectors-Edition-Complete-Rare-/154434074259

 

However when searching for sold/completed items for "Saturn Mega Man", it doesn't show up, as if it doesn't exist? Am I doing it wrong? What's up with that ?

No child left behind? When I search for "domyos bike" worldwide search, there will be two stationary bikes showing up. One is in France and one in the USA. Clicking on either, I get the "We've looked everywhere." I've also had a couple items I can't find through normal search with words that are in the title.

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1 hour ago, kennybrooks said:

Ebay sucks now.  They are changing the search you are using to a specific category so the item is not showing.  How stupid is that of ebay. 

I've hit that a lot in the last year when I've been looking to price out my G1 Transformers to sell, I start on a general "ALL" list and the damn thing randomly in the middle will go into the toys, etc etc TF subsection and it really slices out a lot of stuff which blows.  Same happens when I'd want to look for one too or a missing part in the past.  There's no reason it triggers, it's all random.

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That sounds about right.  "You searched for this but we think you'd like these search results better."

 

Like all of us, I miss the early days of eBay when you could poke around and find items for a good price because they were misspelled.  I got my PS2 right after launch that way.

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3 hours ago, glazball said:

That sounds about right.  "You searched for this but we think you'd like these search results better."

 

Like all of us, I miss the early days of eBay when you could poke around and find items for a good price because they were misspelled.  I got my PS2 right after launch that way.

That's how I got "lockjaw", didn't hurt that it was when storefront listings were not comingled with regular listings.

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The seller put the Ozzy book in 'Vintage & antique', and eBay defaults the search to the most commonly used category for the item you are searching for., at least when it chooses a category for you.  (In this case, Sheet music and song books/contemporary.)

 

On the left side of the screen, where you see the categories, you'll see that 'Contemporary' is bold/black.  If you click the 'Vintage & Antique' category, or better yet, the 'All' category at the top of the list, you will find the auction for the tab book that you linked.

 

Always check the category list on the left.  Sometimes eBay will stuff your search into a category, sometimes it'll just search 'all'...  That's why it's good to switch to all to find that item someone put in a bad category that might sell cheap...  :)

 

Not sure about the Mega Man, maybe something to do with how eBay searches completed BIN auctions that accepted offers...  When I search Saturn Mega Man completed listings, I don't see any 'best off accepted' listings...  And there are bound to be some...

Edited by Rik1138
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On the Mega Man,  maybe it is because a Best Offer was accepted?  Perhaps they are keeping the information private.  You'd have to see if other Best Offers have come up.  I'm only seeing Buy It Nows and high bids in the Sold Listings.  Just a thought.

 

 

 

Edit:   Oh...I see the post above me said basically the same exact thing!  Whoops!

 

Edited by GoldLeader
I didn't notice the wise person above me has already said this...
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13 hours ago, glazball said:

That sounds about right.  "You searched for this but we think you'd like these search results better."

 

Like all of us, I miss the early days of eBay when you could poke around and find items for a good price because they were misspelled.  I got my PS2 right after launch that way.

 

Funny you mention that because I too recall looking for "Nintedo Games"...At first it was a typo (on my part),  then I noticed that with the typo (on their part),  there were way fewer bids!   I probably lucked out on a few things that way haha...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here’s one: Search for Corsair GTX on Amazon and see 21 results, only one of which has GTX in the product name, the 256gb flash drive. Now search for Corsair GTX 128gb and you get 6 pages of results with the first being the 128gb Corsair GTX, which has Corsair and GTX from the first search in the product name. ???

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On 5/17/2021 at 5:35 PM, 5-11under said:

Amazon search sucks. Maybe there's a more specific way to search?

eBay search is getting worse, too, with the categories mess. I miss the "*" feature, too.

don't worry it's all about improving user experience, like when they got rid of ebay bucks, or when they got rid of general discount coupons, buyers only like buying from ebay's hand selected "deals" sellers

trying to find things in the action figures section went to garbage last week when they removed basically all categories for just a generic action figures, being able to specify transformers, or gi joe or star wars etc categories made it harder to find you what you want according to ebay.

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Ebay a week ago removed the section for more specific toy brands like transformers?

 

On one side, I don't like that it's gone, but on the other, when I was buying a few years back it kept randomly popping in and out of that section causing some serious exclusions sometimes on stuff with better prices which was infuriating.

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