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

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. 

 

 

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

Is it possible this Cookbook phenomena is a human error from Sell Similar or Sell One Like This?

 

When I search for the term Captain James Cook, I get this:

 

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They don't all automatically go to Cookbooks. When I try to create a listing using 'Captain James Cook' I get this:

 

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And then if I go with the first offering, I get this:

 

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But if I search for 'Book Captain James Cook' it would probably send me straight to cookbooks, right? 

 

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

Searched Book Captain James Cook, got this:

 

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The first result was listed under Antiques or something and the rest fell into Cookbooks. Cumos, I found your listings, do you know how they ended up in Cookbooks? I don't see an ISBN number to hijack the placement in a product catalogue mixup like I thought earlier.

 

As an aside, when I do searches, I never use the filter options at the side. I think rosedee said that was her preferred method of narrowing down searches but I've found too many fellow sellers miscategorize their stuff. I usually use a ton of terms in my text search to find what I want. And then maybe limit the geographical range or something. 

 

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

I don't think that it is the catalogue in this case. When I click on sell and then enter the isbn of the book Go Upon Discovery (the ISPs is on another sellers listing which is also in cookbooks)  the category comes up as books, nonfiction.

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

Because there is nothing I enjoy in life more than beating a dead horse, here is more on Best Match.

 

Are a Billion Listings Too Much for eBay to Handle?

 

Read down to the comments where someone posts about ebay's user agreement. Here that is:

 

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/user-agreement.html

 

  • We strive to create a marketplace where buyers find what they are looking for. Therefore, the appearance or placement of listings in search and browse results will depend on a variety of factors, including, but not limited to: 

    • buyer's location, search query, browsing site, and history;

    • item's location, listing format, price and shipping cost, terms of service, end time, history, and relevance to the user query; 

    • seller's history, including listing practices, Detailed Seller Ratings, eBay policy compliance, Feedback, and defect rate; and

    • number of listings matching the buyer's query.  

  • To drive a positive user experience, a listing may not appear in some search and browse results regardless of the sort order chosen by the buyer.

  • Some advanced listing upgrades will only be visible on certain Services.

  • eBay's Duplicate Listing Policy may also affect whether your listing appears in search results.

 

 

 

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


@mjwl2006 wrote:

Because there is nothing I enjoy in life more than beating a dead horse, here is more on Best Match.

 

Are a Billion Listings Too Much for eBay to Handle?

 

Read down to the comments where someone posts about ebay's user agreement. Here that is:

 

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/user-agreement.html

 

  • We strive to create a marketplace where buyers find what they are looking for. Therefore, the appearance or placement of listings in search and browse results will depend on a variety of factors, including, but not limited to: 

    • buyer's location, search query, browsing site, and history;

    • item's location, listing format, price and shipping cost, terms of service, end time, history, and relevance to the user query; 

    • seller's history, including listing practices, Detailed Seller Ratings, eBay policy compliance, Feedback, and defect rate; and

    • number of listings matching the buyer's query.  

  • To drive a positive user experience, a listing may not appear in some search and browse results regardless of the sort order chosen by the buyer.  

  • Some advanced listing upgrades will only be visible on certain Services.

  • eBay's Duplicate Listing Policy may also affect whether your listing appears in search results.

 

 

 

MJ, I have read this before but it is great that you posted it.  
To drive a positive user experience, a listing may not appear in some search and browse results regardless of the sort order chosen by the buyer.  This explains why sales are great for a couple of days then nothing for days.  No views, just disappear. 

 

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

I'm not sure how that can be included as a term of service, to be honest. To say explicitly that 'we may decide not to show your listing at all' seems like the sort of thing that would actively discourage sellers from using eBay. Am I missing something? It's different if they hide listings as punishment for duplications or something but this makes it sound almost random. Maybe we should ask R to explain it.
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Insight into Best Match is no further away than viewing how ebay sorts your own Items for Sale

Like ask him in a not-jerky manner. As in 'I don't understand what this means. Can you explain it, please?' Barring some unforeseen circumstances, I'll do this tomorrow.
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Insight into Best Match is no further away than viewing how ebay sorts your own Items for Sale

Nothing new there and been known and disclosed for years.  eg list mutiple duplicate auctions and the extras will never be seen if the first isn't big on.  Overseas results won't necessarily show all international items available.  Return a huge number of search reuslts an its not possible to browse to what should be the end.  Don't use the item specifics right and item may never be seen depending on various factors

 

That wording fuels the auctionbytes crazies "rolling blackout' conspiracy theories.  Which don't happen

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

I never subscribed to the 'rolling blackouts' I've heard mentioned either. That seems too unlikely. Thank you for the insight.
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Insight into Best Match is no further away than viewing how ebay sorts your own Items for Sale


@mjwl2006 wrote:

Because there is nothing I enjoy in life more than beating a dead horse, here is more on Best Match.

 



LOL!!!!!    Gotta admire your self-awareness!!   😄 

 

 

On a more serious note, I think some of the bits are not true, like,

 

We strive to create a marketplace where buyers find what they are looking for.  Therefore,  the appearance or placement of listings in search and browse results will depend on a variety of factors, including:
buyer's location,
item's location,

 

It came up in another thread that a Canadian buyer located in Canada and even CHOOSING Canada Only for a search preference will not be shown Canadian items first.  

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

I agree ebay should do a much better job of showing buyers items from domestic sellers first. This factor needs much greater weight than it gets.
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Insight into Best Match is no further away than viewing how ebay sorts your own Items for Sale


@mjwl2006 wrote:
I agree ebay should do a much better job of showing buyers items from domestic sellers first. This factor needs much greater weight than it gets.

That wouldn't benefit the majority of Canadian sellers who sell mainly to the US as that would mean our listings would be shown after  US listings on .com.

 

 

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

It would help if both USA and Canada listings came before anything from China.
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Insight into Best Match is no further away than viewing how ebay sorts your own Items for Sale

I've always believed that the search algorithm has (and should have) an aspect of randomness to it.

 

The last thing eBay, and we want is a buyer to log on 7 days in a row and see exactly the same things presented to them.  I think the majority would look elsewhere (ie not on ebay) for something new and different, which isn't good for eBay or us.

 

Certainly over the years we've seen things we believe raise our exposure generally, which is good (and presumably those actions cause more sales which is good for eBay and us) but I think there will always be little configuration/weighting changes to the  search algorithm, and that there is some measure of "randomness" to make sure buyers are not presented with the same items repeatedly.

 

But what do I know, I seem to be no closer to really understanding it than I was 10 years ago......

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

Ah, true. Variety is the spice of life!
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Insight into Best Match is no further away than viewing how ebay sorts your own Items for Sale


@ricarmic wrote:

 

Certainly over the years we've seen things we believe raise our exposure generally, which is good (and presumably those actions cause more sales which is good for eBay and us) but I think there will always be little configuration/weighting changes to the  search algorithm, and that there is some measure of "randomness" to make sure buyers are not presented with the same items repeatedly.

 

But what do I know, I seem to be no closer to really understanding it than I was 10 years ago...... 

 


LOL -- this was just about what I was going to say.  After so many years, I've stopped wasting my time and energy trying to parse eBay's search/placement system, and now just try to stick to optimizing Best Practices, as much and as often as I can.  

 

One thing I can say, as an ironic postscript on the subject of search results, is that I've even had items hidden which I knew were there!   

 

This is the weirdest thing possible as a buyer, knowing that you've purchased a certain type of item from a particular buyer, wanting to find it again, and not having it show up under a search term you've used previously.  In my case, I finally had to go back to my "Purchase History" list to locate what I wanted.  Lo and behold, both the seller and his listings were still there on eBay!  

 

If this is what eBay means by random, it doesn't work for me...

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


@rose-dee wrote:

@ricarmic wrote:

 

Certainly over the years we've seen things we believe raise our exposure generally, which is good (and presumably those actions cause more sales which is good for eBay and us) but I think there will always be little configuration/weighting changes to the  search algorithm, and that there is some measure of "randomness" to make sure buyers are not presented with the same items repeatedly.

 

But what do I know, I seem to be no closer to really understanding it than I was 10 years ago...... 

 


LOL -- this was just about what I was going to say.  After so many years, I've stopped wasting my time and energy trying to parse eBay's search/placement system, and now just try to stick to optimizing Best Practices, as much and as often as I can.  

 

One thing I can say, as an ironic postscript on the subject of search results, is that I've even had items hidden which I knew were there!   

 

This is the weirdest thing possible as a buyer, knowing that you've purchased a certain type of item from a particular buyer, wanting to find it again, and not having it show up under a search term you've used previously.  In my case, I finally had to go back to my "Purchase History" list to locate what I wanted.  Lo and behold, both the seller and his listings were still there on eBay!  

 

If this is what eBay means by random, it doesn't work for me...

===================================================================

 

Hmmmmmm Rose that is an interesting point! It may explain why I've received questions from buyers for items that are running but they can't find. I had always assumed it was because they couldn't find it amongst the 3000ish items, or they weren't doing good searches. Never had the thought that it wasn't purposefully showing...... 

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

There was a time a search for a certain book was made on eBay.....  and the search showed what there was on eBay...supposedly

 

Then two days later The same search was done... and "everything" showed.... That first search was "modified"  when the results were reported

 

Now one gets the feeling that eBay'search has decided not to play games with me.

 

The key to doing a search on eBay is to start with page 1.....  click on the four color ebay  logo at the top left of each page on eBay...

and start a new search.

 

Never add a second search on top of the first search......eBay's search engine remembers 

 

always start ... new on page 1...

 

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Item specifics are important... the search engine uses item specifics in a search...

 

I do not have to say History> Canada in a listing... yet if a search for History Canada is done... all of the listings with these two words in item specifics ... or in a description  as some sellers do....will show up...

 

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The first series... of words... perhaps the first four words as keywords .... are very important .... This order will help the search define where  a listing is placed in a report.

 

What I see with books is that too many sellers do not understand that the title of a book may not be indicative of the content.....The same principle can be extended to everything being listed on eBay.... 

 

Answer the question... What is being sold?

 

Sometimes I will list something totally different .. titlewise...  than what other sellers will do.....  and my listing sells....  as the title is based on content....or is a better description of what is being sold.....  and sometimes this may not work... depends on what a potential buyer uses as words in a search...

 

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When I do a search I start with one or two words.....on page 1.... and as the search progresses I will add more words if necessary....and sometimes I will back track

 

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One has to learn how to work with Cassini.....or is it how to dance with Cassini in a positive manner.....  learn how to find it.... where the IT is what one wants to find

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

I think this is the reason I'm uncomfortable with the idea of machine-learning-artificial-intelligence-powered search results and displays. I know what I'm looking to find whereas eBay doesn't and cannot and won't.
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