Insight into Best Match is no further away than viewing how ebay sorts your own Items for Sale

[momcqueen]

Much has been said over the years about ebay's Best Match selection and criteria. Everyone wants to know the secret to placing higher in Best Match. 

Personally, I don't see it as any great mystery. Ebay rewards sellers with recent sales over sellers with cheaper items or better performance records as far as I can see, which tells me Best Match prizes what it considers to be relevance over anything else. As I used in an example on another thread....

Allow me to provide an example: A Tale of Two Sellers.

Seller A has feedback at 100 per cent and glowing reviews that make her sound like she's next in line for the Nobel Prize for e-Commerce sales. Seller B has 98 per cent feedback and reviews that make him sound like Jack the Ripper. Both are selling the same items for basically the same price and both are located within the same country. Who ranks higher? The one who has more recent sales, more views and more watchers. Ebay REWARDS sellers for past sales of an item by placing them higher in the next search for that item because they assume that seller with that item is more relevant than anyone else.

If Seller A had a sales slump due to, for example, closing their store for vacation while Seller B continued to see regular purchases during that same time period, Seller B will rank higher in Best Match even if all his buyers weren't happy. Ebay rewards the successful sellers with more sales. This works in to ebay's favour because it means more Final Value Fees. As much as we like to think a squeaky clean seller profile and good price will place us top in Best Match, the reality as I see it is that ebay gives that boost to sellers who sell, regardless of how happy their buyers are. To a point. 

This is why we all see weird trends: suddenly selling six items in a row to only German buyers, or randomly three consecutive people want something that has just been sitting around for two years. A sale an hour ago means you're hitting top of Best Match on that search now. 

Take my own listings arranged by Best Match, for example. They filter by Recently Sold, Most Watched etc. All are with Free Shipping. Extrapolate from this how your items would appear against other sellers with the same items and it's not hard to figure out who ranks higher and for what reason. Sold sold sold is what counts most. 

There are only two in my top ten that to me defy any easy explanation of the reason they appear as high in my Best Match as the others but both include Free Shipping. My guess here would be that maybe those have been among popular Recent Searches by users on ebay. 

[musicyouneed]

Hi Mj, your insight sounded excellent, so logical so I wanted to see what I could come out with using a CD I do not have, just do a search as best match baffles me and if I could learn the secret, I will be well ahead of the game.  I do think that sales have a lot to do with where you place in best match.  The more sales you have the more sales you will get and watchers boost you on the best match.  

Now in best match, if I do a search for a Bob Dylan Highway 61 Revisited, would you and i get the same search even and at different times would we see the same items.  See my comments on the top 4 that I was presented with.  3 of the 4 have watchers.  3 of the 4 are BIN, one is an auction, some had sales and others didn't.  The top 18 out of 105 were all top rated sellers.  Also when I changed my address to Canada, all of a sudden it was a different best match and that the #1 below became #4.  After my little experiment, I am no closer to the secret of best match.   Thank you anyways MJ, it is good insight.  I believe that sales and watchers play a big role but I am no closer to learning the secret of best match. 

[momcqueen]

Intersting, I get different results for the Bob Dylan than do you. Was this the exact search term that you used? "Bob Dylan Highway 61 Revisited". I do know that Best Match takes both your location and previous buying habits into consideration. I rank high in Best Match with brand-new buyers, for example. The take-away form this, I think, is that commanding it is beyond our control. As far as I can tell, it's about who last sold how much. When we start selling, we stay high in match. Which makes the slow periods very painful since it turns into a tailspin. 

[musicyouneed]

Hi MJ search CD's.

[momcqueen]

Done. This is what I get when I search it on ebay.ca.

[momcqueen]

This is what I get when I search for it on ebay.com but not logged into any account, although my IP address will still identify me as being located in Canada. 

[momcqueen]

And, finally, this is what I get when I search for it on ebay.co.uk but not logged into any account, although my IP address will still clearly identify me as being located in Canada. 

[momcqueen]

Again, my results may differ from yours due to my search on the word  CD in the title instead of filtered by Item Specific along the side. 

[musicyouneed]

This is my search.

[momcqueen]

You get 112 and I get 121. 

[momcqueen]

You narrowed your search to Music and CDs whereas I just went full throttle into it with Search Terms only. That itself will affect the results one gets. 

[musicyouneed]

So MJ, I don't know about you but I am not any closer to understanding best match except for:

You will rate higher in best match if (in order of importance):

1. If you sell things, the more you sell, the higher the placement, the more you sell. 
2. If your item has watchers, it will be higher in best match
3. If you are a top rated seller you will be higher.
4. Offering free shipping doesn't necessarily move you up.  #21 of 112 (in this test case)
5. Being a "new listing" doesn't give move you up too much #42 of 112 (in this test case)

MJ have I left anything off?

[cumos55]

When one does a search, one should always start on eBay's first page, whether on eBay Canada or eBay.com.

Never start a new search immediately after  a previous  search.... Always go back to page 1.

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Best Match does use item specifics.

All books listed under Subject History and Topic Canada.... will show up in a search for History Canada....  even if these two words are not in the title....  or even in the description

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The words in the title that show in a search report are more important than the words used in a title in the listing.

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The first four words in a title of a listing... the title that shows in a search report .....are most important as keywords.

Many sellers do not understand that the content of a book is more important than the title.....  Many times the title  attracts the attention of a buyer, but may not  be very specific to the content of a book .... can be applied to other item being sold on eBay .

An example...... Many will list a book as Dummies based on the title... but do not mention that the book is about cruise missile testing in northern Canada.....

or ... the title is ....Capital in Flames...  and do not mention  that the book is about the War of 1812....  and it was York... the old name for Toronto ... that was in flames....  It should also be noted  that the other capital in flames  was Washington DC  during the War of 1812....in North America.....

[cumos55]

And... Best Match can make mistakes......

Do a search for Captain James Cook... and all listings of books will  will be shown under... Cookbooks.

My three  books,,, about Captain James Cook.....show up in Cookbooks... even though item specifics say... History>Canada....

Nothing is perfect.....

[musicyouneed]

I see what you mean, that is ridiculous.   Ebay needs to fix this.  We should have a Discussion board devoted strickly to issues that ebay needs to look at.   Ebay buyers and sellers would report problems.  I am sure you have brought this up but do the right people know about this?  Are the sellers putting them as cookbooks or is ebay automatically slotting them there?

[cumos55]

Only recently found out about the "Cook" problem.

[momcqueen]

Cookbooks for Capt. Cook. That's funny right there.

[momcqueen]

The Capt. Cook is a Cookbook mismatch is exactly the grounds for which I am continually bellyaching about the Product Catalogue. I would be willing to bet this has happened as a result of a category-match-overwrite. I doubt booksellers (who tend to be book-readers first) are putting their Capt. Cook Canadian history titles under Cookbooks on purpose. It's more likely an item hijack thanks to the flawed Product Catalogue.

Like Hot Wheels: don't get me started.

I do have THIS exact problem with the dozen Disney Cars they added to the Product Catalogue. (Luckily, they've only done a dozen of the thousands manufactured.) Despite there being a whole dedicated category on eBay for Disney Cars specifically, the product catalogue geniuses dumped them into NASCAR toys. So dumb.

[rose-dee]

I frequently get the same sort of weirdly jumbled results 'cumos' mentioned in searches when checking competitors in my own categories.

Some are real head-shakers, and quite funny, although I can't produce a precise example from memory right now.  Most of those categories are for items where the Product Catalogue doesn't apply, for example vintage or antique items, so I'm not convinced the flawed Product Catalogue is completely to blame. 

I don't usually use "Best Match" to filter my searches because, to be honest I've found it rarely produces good results for me.  Normally I search by a specific term, then filter down if necessary by the parameters available on the left panel of the search screen.  

So if it seems that in either case (by Best Match or otherwise), bizarre and irrelevant items pop up in search, there is something other than, or in addition to, the Product Catalogue at work.  Personally I think it's eBay's computer attempting to sort by relevance based on search terms without the benefit of human judgment.  At least from the point of view of a linguist, this is what my search results frequently look like to me.  That may not (and presumably should not) be the case if you do the same search by first specifying a given category. 

The fact that it's laughable for cook books to pop up in a search for Captain Cook would never occur to a computer algorithm, poor thing. 

[rose-dee]

What I meant to add, to somewhat clarify, is that looking at 'musicyouneed's' example, I suspect eBay's computer is first looking at the phrase or series of words entered by the user, attempting to give weight to the individual words as search terms (perhaps based on searches done by other users), then attempting to match that "primary" search word to eBay categories, again without the benefit of human judgment.  

Weighting and matching is a known structure in search algorithms (common for example on Google), but the problem arises when the computer doesn't know that it's made a mis-match.  

Bottom line: I think the only thing we can really know for sure is that eBay's search system is a complex, tentacled monster that we will never fully be able to deconstruct and explain, partly because the programmers are doubtless constantly tinkering with its capabilities.