Searching sold listings

[Arrowhead]

Has anyone noticed that Ebay seems to have tinkered the results that you get when you do a completed listing search? I’ll type in pretty narrow search terms and get swamped with results, most of which are not relevant.

Today I was looking at shirts made by a specific brand, and typed in Vtg Johnny Cotton Shirt. That brought up 232 results, very few of which had all those words in the title. I can’t remember this ever being a problem until pretty recently. Here’s the title of one result that came back:
Vintage Metallica Rebel Skull;Yin-Yang Skulls;Pushead;Size XL;Free Ship
As you can see, outside of vintage/vtg, it doesn’t even have any of the other words in my search. Anyone know of any tips/boolean logic type tricks to get around this?

[MyCottage]

Try:
vintage “johnny cotton” shirt

[Arrowhead]

That works a lot better, thanks!

[sonia]

I have been noticing this for quite a long time. Part of it has to do with the fact that it’s not just searching titles – it’s also searching item specifics and category name. Searching for vests is annoying b/c it always brings up all coats and jackets too, b/c they are in the same category, which has the word “vests” in it. Checking the “vest” item specific on the left side of the screen helps, of course. For your issue you can check the appropriate Brand. But, there have been times where I’ve searched for something and gotten results where I couldn’t find any of the search terms in the title or item specifics or anywhere.

[Arrowhead]

That makes sense, that it would be casting a wider net and including words pulled from places other than the title. I wonder why it only happens with some of my searches- most are fine and pull up the relevant results.

[Temudgin]

I think it’s also the AI giving you results for what it thinks you’ll be interested in. I find it particularly bad on major retailer websites for auto parts and home improvement. Type in a specific search and get hundreds if not thousands of irrelevant results. For me eBay seems to do it sometimes, and sometimes not.

Searches for sold items on Terapeak seem to be consistently better. I always get results with titles specific to my search.

[Arrowhead]

I always forget about ol’ Terapeak. I need to include that in my searches more often. I’ve noticed what you’re talking about on other retailer’s sites as well.

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