Help With Ebay Search

In my opinion ebay search is astounding. Yes, it is not fully functional and I do not like the way it works either but I can appreciate the trade-offs they have made.

First and as previously pointed out, a lot depends on users and how descriptive they make their listings. But the more significant is the scope of the search and what would happen if they tried to support a full-text index on the massive amount of data in their databases. No one would be happy if the searches took 30-60 seconds to complete. And no amount of hardware would resolve the amount of time it would take to full-text index all the tokens that would be generate in the listings.

Additionally, it is remarkable that you can add a listing and within 30-40 seconds is it searchable. This is extraordinary and represents performance that other online searchable databases like Google can't touch.

So while I understand the frustration of the current search approach I am not so sure that wishing ebay had a full-text index would be embraced if folks had to sit there waiting for the search to return for long periods of time. This is particularly true when combined with the fact that the listing has so much dependency on being properly listed by the seller.
Don

Keep in mind that ebay uses load balancing. It can take hours to update on all servers. It may hit search quickly on the server you listed from but to trickle down to all the servers could take hours.

Don, I would not recommend a full text search, but a category aware search would be helpful. Since it is known that stamps are cataloged by number, a number oriented search that handled tokens in a different way at the start of the search would make a big difference. In principle, ebay already has that capability in item specifics. Adding Catalog and Catalog Number item specifics to the Stamps category could be helpful, if search would use the item specific first for numeric or near numeric searches. Unfortunately, ebay goes the other way and returns out of category results, which are irrelevant almost 100% of the time.

Not having some context awareness and a map of connections between subject areas produced some embarrassing results on a major philatelic site when search for Scott 70b using the color "steel blue" caused some very raunchy ads to appear on the web page.

On the other hand, now that there seem to be more stamp auctions than buyers on ebay, bottom feeders seem to do most searching by ending soonest to try to snag bargains. Of course, searching listings about to end is probably the best way to make an error and buy something you don't want, especially if the seller carefully hides condition information at the bottom of the description where it won't be seen on a smart phone or tablet device.

I found the most effective solution not search for stamps on ebay unless someone who knows what I might want sends me an email. As an aside, it is possible to construct effective searches find misidentified stamps. My favorite is (139, 150, 161, 187, 188) in United States 19th century used. Second best is (134, 145, 156, 182). In Stamps > United States, the following search is virtually guaranteed to produce a plethora of bad results: (315,388,389,356,314A,316,317,318,321,322,482A,596,594,544,613,534B,271a,272a,832b) Although Cassini produces more irrelevant results than the old search, bad coils and trimmed 304 stamps are still abundant.

As a seller, my main concern is to insure that fixed price listings show up high enough in search to be seen by active buyers.

Clark
clarkphilatelics