Jumping Categories In Searches

There has got to be some way to get ebay to stop jumping out of category when doing a search.

I just did a stamp search for Philippines Scott #445; the first 4 replies were:
1. Photo of Gatsha Buthelezi Zulu Tribe Leader
2. Disc Brake Rotor Rear Pronto BR31096 fits 91-95 Toyota MR2
3. Victoria Secret PINK Sexy Lace Bralette Size M
4. 1975 Topps #445 Felix Millan New York Mets

None of the above have anything to do with stamps.

Why can't ebay simply say not item found and stay in the same category for a new search.

Jumping around to some other #*%#* category is #*%#* annoying.

bugs me too
never once has it taken me to something that I was interested in if Iit couldn't find what I wask asking it for

ebay seems tweaked for gift hunters who have little specificity in mind so may spontaneously buy whatever is shown to them.

Exact opposite of philatelists and numismatists.

Timm, but look at the bargains!

Maybe it is fixed now. I went to the ebay stamps category and searched for Philippine 445 - it came back with a nice list.

No, it is not fixed. For some reason ebay believes that buyers lack out of category experiences. Worse, if a search turns up nothing in a category, it is not possible to navigate to completed or sold listings. In any case, why does it matter? Rendering ads on ebay pages may add two to ten seconds or more to load search pages. Most buyers aren't that patient. This may explain the steep decline in page views and sales.

Clark

I just went to "All ebay" and did a search on "double impression" and got a nice mixture of stamps and other junk that just happened to have those two words in the title.

Then I went to the Stamps category and performed the same search. Nothing but stamps were presented in the search results.

This "problem" seems to be localized.

I also note that the dozen or so searches I have on file and for which I receive a daily email listing "new stuff", all provide in category results.

Rather than localized your example appears to be an exception because of being non item specific request.

I'm probably not understanding just what you mean by "non item specific request".

I tried "U429 double impression" and had only 5 auctions returned (all of which I would expect, based on my search criteria).

Was this search item specific?

Anticipating a complaint with my most recent search, I tried just plain old "U429".

I got all kinds of junk returned with a mess of U429 envelopes.

However, if I searched the titles of these pieces of random junk, I always found the character string "U429" embedded in there somewhere.

Except very occasionally there would no "U429" in the title, but there would be the string "U429" in the description somewhere. It seems the search algorithm will dip into the description field once in a while. But clearly not every auction description with "U429" embedded in the description. Odd.

You may be using the search incorrectly. I just searched and it came back perfectly. I always do my searches withing the stamp forum, in other words, I search once for US Stamps and when I get there if I want to find something else, I search for it again.

hope this helps
wp62

Remove the scott and put the word stamp ( all true it give me same results without it ) , here my 5 first listing

the 4th one look nice

Search on ebay works fairly well if a sufficient number of matching Scott numbers are available. It doesn't work as well with a Scott number like 500 or 150. Search may or may not work well if only a few results are returned. Try searching for Scott R49b. While that search may work, searches fail completely if no results are returned. When that happens, it is not possible to look for completed or sold listings. The bottom line is that search is almost useless when looking for rarely listed items. Browsing doesn't work well either because of too many listings in most categories. Finding rarely listed US back of the book listings is particularly difficult.

Clark

$ 500 for those stamps, I just check on my stamps ledger, I paid 3,000 pesos ( around $ 100 cdn at the time ) in 1999 for one when I was in Manilla ( I leave there for 3 years ) and it was around the catalogue price

How do we get ebay to STOP jumping categories?
I have emailed them a dozen time but have never heard anything back.