Ebay search engine bugs?

[retrogeekaustralia]

Hi Guys,

Has anyone else been noticing glitches in the search engine not displaying their listings properly? It has only been happening on a couple of my listing and it's probably one of the listings with the most sales so it's killing me.

For example one of these listings i have is usually around about the 4th spot on the first page when i search a particular keyword, but there were a few days last week when i would search it and it was nowhere to be found on the first page. Now this was on the default search option so best match was already selected, however when i pulled the the drop down menu down and selected best match manually the page would refresh and listing was showing up where it was suppose to, search the keyword again in the search field and it would dissapear.

Now since Sunday night two of my most important listings are having this issue, these ones have been around 2nd and 3rd place in the search result for months now. And when i search for it it is nowhere on the first page. Now close the top 10 listings here are all completely Aussie listings, there is 1 hong kong listings amongst them but when i select "Australia Only" from the search criteria my listing shows up in the spot it should be. Now i know this is definitely a glitch and not just a drop in my listing because in this view my two listings are between two other sellers, now when i switch back to worldwide these two sellers still appear close to the top of the page and mine are nowhere in between them.

This is really frustrating and costing me a lot of progress in getting my listing to the top of the results, i usually sell around 5-8 between the two of these items a day and now since Sunday night i havn't had a single purchase as no one can freaking see them!! It's not even about the imediate loss of money that i am worried about it is the progress of getting it to the top of the search results that i am going to lose, it took months of sales to get it that high and now a few days of no sales will just kill this listing off.

I've contacted eBay via chat, phone, email telling them to sort this out but they are useless! Telling me it could take days before they sort the bug out but it is days i don't have!! Unless they want to compensate for the next few months of sales when my listing drops even further down because it is invisible on the search results.

Sorry for the rant guys, i guess im just hoping maybe someone from ebay will see this and get there act together (highly doubt it though)

Is anyone else experiencing this issue lately because i have no idea what to do

[retrogeekaustralia]

This is the reply i get, and it absolute bunch of crap, they are just trying to to avoid to issue completely.

Hi Sean,

Thank you for contacting ebay about searching for your item.

Currently, there is not a site issue that would be affecting your account or your listings. The way that it has been explained to me is that the algorithm that is used to calculate the Best Match sorting is complex and is coming from several different eBay servers. These servers are constantly running the formula that is used to detect listings for Best Match. As you are aware, one of the factors that can affect Best Match is Buyer Satisfaction. If your Buyer Satisfaction is at a 'poor' level, one server may not pick up on that but another server will and it will throw that factor into the Best Match equation. This would explain why some listings are affected and some are not.

I know that this was not the answer that you were hoping for and I apologise for that, but this is the answer that the product developers for the Australian site and the Best Match product team out of San Jose have confirmed.

Having said that, Best Match can only be controlled to a certain extent. One of those controllable factors that has an impact is Buyer Satisfaction. It is extremely important to maintain a low percentage of Buyer's who show that they are not satisfied. This percentage needs to be less than 2% of total transactions over a 4 week time frame.

Buyer activity is another factor, and unfortunately this cannot be controlled by a seller. The way that a buyer searches our site and the types of items that they are looking for and buying is fed into the Best Match algorithm as well.

We do not know all of the detailed factors that are used to calculate Best Match because these are not shared with the general public. What we do know are the general factors such as Buying Behaviour, Seller Performance, and Listing Practises.

We thank you in advance for your cooperation, and wish you luck with your future eBay transactions.

IThanks for contacting ebay.

Cheers,

Salvador F.

eBay Customer Support.

[retrogeekaustralia]

I know 100% that this is a glitch because The ordering of best match is the same no matter whether you have Australia Only listings or Worldwide listings set. the only difference is that the worldwide ones are removed from the results, So my listings should still be displaying in the same order!!

eBay your staff are shameful and i want someone to contact me ASAP

[putney32]

senic.... ebay dont read these boards, they are member to member boards only.

[retrogeekaustralia]

Actually i just realized it does exactly the same thing if i select to show 200 listings per page.

Basically what the glitch is, if i can get the results down to a single page then my listing shows in the correct order, however if there is more than one page then it automatically pushed mine back a page.

[zeroninetyone091]

Yes this has also is happening to me and I am getting the complete run around by eBay.

It has now gone on for a week.

Does the glitch repairs itself or do I have to keep on at eBay?

So frustrating but a relief in one way that I am not the only one.

Thank you for posting this problem and up dating it.

[zeroninetyone091]

Still waiting for this too be sorted.

At least eBay admits that there is a problem on discovery that a second listing has gone AWOL!

[suitcase_of_memories]

And in turn with their responses they are admitting that they accept far more listings  than they can visually present, which is in itself defrauding people who believe they are being seen by viewers the world over !

I find the searches change so often these days that it hardly matters what we do, ebay is accomodating their 'favoured largest sellers', irrespective or country of origin, over the little fish, but are still accepting the fees they charge all for nothing in return.

I have noticed in the Completed Listings hardly a category from the US matches up with the Aussie site, [if they are in blue & clickable they match up with us & visa versa, if they show in black & are not clickable then we don't get that category link up.].

Ebay is fast turning into a nightmare selling venue for thousands of sellers.

Is this what the new dude meant when he made that statement along the line of leaving the old proven methods behind ???

[luveleappliances]

Hi there,

Having the exact same issue. I have been selling on eBay for the last few years. I have worked really hard to get most of my listings on the front page of best match search results. In most cases they have been in the top 1-5 of the front page search results. All has been going well for the last 12 to 18 months. Then last week everything changed. 5 of my top selling products have been bouncing from the front page to the second page and today one of my top selling products was on page 3!! I have 100% feedback and top customer satisfaction and my products are still selling. There is no reason why this should be happening.

I called eBay 3 times last week and ended up talking with a supervisor because the first guy I spoke to had no idea. The supervisor was not much better. He would not listen to my very clear explanation of the best match glitch. He kept trying to say it was an issue with my feedback and listing headings. The conversation was very frustrating. Long story short, they really did not want to help.

I think this is a big issue and needs addressing by eBay Australia. It is an Australia eBay Best Match search issue. I think the more people that complain the better. eBay needs to know that hard working, reliable sellers are loosing money and business, not fun!! 

[zeroninetyone091]

The two listings that went AWOL a couple of weeks ago, ( I now realise after the Friday's up dating) have now returned to their rightful positions on page one. ( This correction also happened after last Friday's update)

Throughout this whole time eBay insisted that although they could see what I was saying their technical team kept saying that there was nothing wrong.

I have come to the conclusion that if there is a problem and eBay can not fix it their  response is that there is no problem. I know this sounds Double Dutch but that is the way I see it.

As a consequence my sales figures crashed over this period!

So to any one else who comes across this problem there is hope that it will rectify itself over time.