Does anyone understand Ebay's search?

[splin]

.. cause it seems I don't. I was looking for a tool to clean the inside of copper pipe solder fittings prior to soldering so in the UK Ebay site I put the search term 'pipe fitting cleaner' and got 216 hits, as shown in the first picture, ordered by lowest cost + pp.

It occured to me that some vendors may describe them as wire brushes so I expanded the search using 'pipe fitting (brush,cleaner)' to catch titles including brush OR cleaner. But now it only gets 46 matches as shown in the second picture.

What is going on? This usually worked before for me although I must admit I have often had problems with items going missing, unexpectedly, as I try to narrow the search down.

[EDIT] Just noticed that the three out of four items that are missing from the 2nd search have 'pipe' and 'cleaner' but not 'fitting' in the title so it looks like adding the brackets made the search more exacting and rejected any items not including 'fitting'. Damn! Why do search engines have to be so hard requiring so much experimentation to discover the unexpected subleties. Is this why TIN beats us to all the good stuff? 

At least Ebay's search still seems to be way better than Windows 10's    <- Me after trying to find a file on my Windows PC that I know is there somewhere before resorting to Windows ports of Unix 'find' and 'grep' utils (and then spending hours trying to work out the proper escape sequences for '  " / - * . etc)!

[SilverSolder]

eBay's search is a shadow of its former self...  in the (good) old days it understood wildcards e.g. HP 33*  would find HP 3335, 3325, etc., I've never forgiven them for dropping support for that!

You could try something like (pipe, fitting) (brush, cleaner) in your search to cast your net a little wider...   

[Brumby]

I've tried crafting search queries on eBay and tend to find my best successes come from a "best effort" on the constructs you have mentioned above, followed by a series of minus arguments to remove items that aren't relevant.  Sometimes that series of minuses is ten entries or more.

Even then, things aren't always easy.

For example, if you want to look at scopes but get buried in scope probe listings, then you can add -probes to the search - but that will also knock out any listing that says scope with probes.  Categories aren't always reliable because sellers often use the wrong one, either deliberately to increase exposure or out of laziness or ignorance.

Yes, searching on eBay is an art.

[splin]

eBay's search is a shadow of its former self...  in the (good) old days it understood wildcards e.g. HP 33*  would find HP 3335, 3325, etc., I've never forgiven them for dropping support for that!

You could try something like (pipe, fitting) (brush, cleaner) in your search to cast your net a little wider...

But that doesn't help me narrow the search down to the stuff I'm looking for - removing 'fitting' returns 14k hits whereas '(pipe,cleaner)' increase that to 15k+ hits. Whilst that improves my chances of finding the cheapest product that matches my needs it also means I have even more stuff to look through. My time isn't worth much but even I have my limits...

My real question is why, in my original searches, did the 2nd search term, which I expected to return more results, actually returned fewer. I'm guessing that tags may be involved but I don't really have any idea. Is Ebay's search engine documented anywhere other than superficially?

[xmo]

I agree with SilverSolder.  ebay keeps making their site harder and harder to browse.  Extremely annoying.

The good news for me is that I buy a lot less stuff these days.

[Mr. Scram]

eBay's search is a shadow of its former self...  in the (good) old days it understood wildcards e.g. HP 33*  would find HP 3335, 3325, etc., I've never forgiven them for dropping support for that!

You could try something like (pipe, fitting) (brush, cleaner) in your search to cast your net a little wider...

Google does the same. It's been more effective to ask a human-like sloppy question instead of using a neat query for a while now. Modifiers and wildcards still work, but regularly get ignored or even changed in an aggravating fashion because Google thinks it knows better and feels you're as sloppy as the rest.

[splin]

I've tried crafting search queries on eBay and tend to find my best successes come from a "best effort" on the constructs you have mentioned above, followed by a series of minus arguments to remove items that aren't relevant.  Sometimes that series of minuses is ten entries or more.

Even then, things aren't always easy.

For example, if you want to look at scopes but get buried in scope probe listings, then you can add -probes to the search - but that will also knock out any listing that says scope with probes.  Categories aren't always reliable because sellers often use the wrong one, either deliberately to increase exposure or out of laziness or ignorance.

Yes, searching on eBay is an art.

Your not kidding. My first revelation was when I discovered that selecting 'Worldwide' (an option on ebay.co.uk but not on ebay.com) suddenly stopped finding items listed on ebay.com (specifically Vishay foil resistors from a Chinese vendor). I don't know if the vendor changed their listings or if ebay changed their algorithms. It's especially frustrating when your hard won knowledge is trashed because of some (undocumented/unannounced) marketing bod's whim or a S/W engineer's 'improvement'.

[edpalmer42]

Another complication is that typically ebay won't show you results that meet your search criteria if the seller is in another country and didn't allow international shipping.  I've stumbled across such gems and, when I ask, the seller says "Oh, I must have forgotten to specify that.  Sure I'll ship internationally."   

Even more annoying is when ebay spams me.  They include crap that has absolutely nothing to do with my search criteria.  Just drives me wild.    If there was a credible alternative, I'd drop ebay in a second.

As for Google, I automatically specify a verbatim search.  That cuts out most, if not all, of the undocumented synonym rubbish.  I've seen thousands of search results drop to a couple of hundred.

Ed

[Back2Volts]

What about something like this

copper ( tube ,, pipe ) fitting ( brush ,, cleaner )

I think the spaces around ,, are required.

[splin]

Another complication is that typically ebay won't show you results that meet your search criteria if the seller is in another country and didn't allow international shipping.  I've stumbled across such gems and, when I ask, the seller says "Oh, I must have forgotten to specify that.  Sure I'll ship internationally."   

Even more annoying is when ebay spams me.  They include crap that has absolutely nothing to do with my search criteria.  Just drives me wild.    If there was a credible alternative, I'd drop ebay in a second.

Indeed. A herd problem.

As for Google, I automatically specify a verbatim search.  That cuts out most, if not all, of the undocumented synonym rubbish.  I've seen thousands of search results drop to a couple of hundred.

Ed

Wow. I didn't know about verbatim mode - Tools->'All results'

That will be very useful. Thanks.

[splin]

What about something like this

copper ( tube ,, pipe ) fitting ( brush ,, cleaner )

I think the spaces around ,, are required.

Interesting. Where is this all documented? I don't recall coming across anything like this?

[Peabody]

Wow. I didn't know about verbatim mode - Tools->'All results'

That will be very useful. Thanks.

Sorry, but I can't find "tools" or "verbatim" on US Ebay.  Where are they?  Thanks.

[Back2Volts]

What about something like this

copper ( tube ,, pipe ) fitting ( brush ,, cleaner )

I think the spaces around ,, are required.

Interesting. Where is this all documented? I don't recall coming across anything like this?

I am not sure how I came up with it, probably google.   I have used it for many years.   Just now I found this

https://www.ebay.co.uk/pages/help/search/search-commands.html

which seems to indicate you can get away with single comma and no spaces.

By the way, in the last few months the dropped the use of * which was great to deal with plurals among other things.

[splin]

Wow. I didn't know about verbatim mode - Tools->'All results'

That will be very useful. Thanks.

Sorry, but I can't find "tools" or "verbatim" on US Ebay.  Where are they?  Thanks.

It's a feature of Google's search - not Ebay.