I need to point out something that I have only recently discovered. If you have noticed that the keywords you are using to produce WordBay eBay listings are giving you different results to when you type them direct into eBay search, there is a reason, and right now, if it’s what I think it is, there is not much I can do about it.
I believe it’s because of the new eBay search that is being introduced, to replace the old style search by the end of April this year, and which you may have already noticed on the eBay site (US, at least). Among other features, it offers a more intelligent search which gives you a greater number of relevant results. The old style search only searched on the item title, unless you ticked the box Include title and description in which case you were likely to get all kinds of irrelevant results, but new search has an improved algorithm which finds more relevant items.
But guess what - the eBay RSS feed, which is where WordBay and a number of similar products get their listings from, still appears to implement the old-style search. So unfortunately we are rather limited now in comparison to the search that can be performed directly on the eBay site and there is nothing much I can do about it - believe me, I would be very glad to have the new search working with WordBay as a number of my sites are displaying inferior results to what they could be showing. I hope this new search will also be available through RSS too soon. I will keep you posted.
Posted on March 18th, 2009 by markowe
Filed under: Uncategorized
Markowe
I have to ask, given your preference for eBay’s new search, if you actually sell anything on eBay? Myself, and just about every other eBay PowerSeller that I know, absolutely detest the new search in comparison to the old search. In fact, the majority of us prefer the older system of far, far more subcategories in the category structure, because the new item specifics, new search, and the so-called seller performance ratings (based on highly emotional data) has eroded our businesses to the point where we cannot even find our own items on eBay - even if we input the full and exact item title complete with a unique code ID in the title when listed.
I have noticed that sometimes WordBay suffers this, not always, just sometimes, and it seems to be based on a phenomena that has come to be known as geo-clustering, or tap-on-tap-off visibility by eBay users around the world. In essence, eBay turns up the bandwidth for selected locations in a rotation, and those outside that location get nothing but garbage in their search results.
It’s not uncommon for all of a week’s sales to come from say New York, then the next week they come from Seattle, then the next week from Texas, and so on. I’ve just had a week where every single sale came from Nevada - including the sales from UK listings, and Singapore listings … and I’m in Thailand (SE Asia).
I guess what I’m saying, is that chasing the dog’s tail with eBay search is an easy route to the funny farm. If you’ve got a system that works, stick with it. It might stop working for a bit, but it’s turn will come around again.