Can Anyone Explain Search Results?

[Anonymous]

I list the majority of things in just a few categories. When, just to see what came up, I did a "best match" search this morning using just the top level search parameter (manufacturer name only, rather than manufacturer, SKU number, and item name) a whole lot of listings came up from one seller. They were auction listings of lots. Needless to say, none of my store items were in the top two pages of results.

What determines how things show up in searches? Do store listings not show up at all under best match? Should I be tucking an auction listing in here and there amongst the store listings in order to raise my visibility? Does this mean that casual browsers never even see me? (Oh horrible thought!)

Is there a rule of thumb that we store sellers should use in order to keep our listings near the frothy top of the search results? 😄

[femmefan1946]

No rule of thumb, being an TRS/PowerSeller helps, , high DSRs help, ' You are good on those.

I believe the date/time the listing ends helps, so it is useful to have listings ending between 4pm and midnight PACIFIC time every day.

Being in a small niche helps.

Having items that are Searched on specific terms helps (My customers search author and title not "science fiction book").

Others?

[ricarmic]

I would really like to know what impacts the search results too. I've been watching my lots in a category "best match" result and from it it appears to me:
- TRS helps but there are NON TRS people coming up first (of the non ending soon items,the category listing inserts store items with various end dates amongst the ending soonest items) so impact of a NON TRS isn't overwhelming
- selling stuff helps
-if it is a multiple item and one sells that for sure boosts it up, a couple sell and it comes onto the front page
-if the seller sells (or someone else) sells something with a similar name that seems to boost others with close names
-probably how many items you have in that category impact too
-I think free shipping probably also improves but I haven't watched that closely enough to be sure, I always have believed it has helped (most of my stuff is free shipping)

I would be very interested to know what other people have been observing about search result patterns/influences.

I've been watching the impact of DSR closely because I am going to lose it internationally in May and unless people stay happier in the next month or so I'll probably lose it in the US too. I sell dangerous stuff in the "item as described" especially to the 96% of buyers who don't read anything in the listing...sighhh

[zarzuella]

This was written a couple of years ago but it does go a long way towards describing the mess that is Best Match:

http://www.auctioninsights.info/decoding-ebays-best-match.html


Ann

[dipmicro]

Rule of thumb:

Fixed price items are sunk or elevated based on past sales, seller's DSR, views/sales ratio, etc. It's good idea to relist GTC items that havent had sale for last 30-60 days.

Auctions follow more-less ending soonest algorithm even when Best Match is selected and are intermingled with FP items. So that explains why you seen bunch of auctions without bids from single seller.

[ricarmic]

Hi a question regarding the suggestion to relist after 30 to 60 days. I see that my "longtime unsold" items which get lots of views (or had lots of views) often show up a lot sooner than newer stuff with fewer views and that tends to more quickly sell. If I relist them I lose the "previous views" and I'd think that would drop it down more. The comparison I'm making here is that an item that has over its lifetime (over a year) 800 or 900 views is showing up long before a "more popular" newer item that has 25 views. Maybe I'll try an experiment or two with this.

[zarzuella]

I'm sure I read somewhere that items with a lot of page views but no sales were penalized in Best Match.

[ricarmic]

Hi again! That would make logical sense to me, but as an example 200454135022 with over 2800 views and quantity of 1, shows up a page ahead of 380321842171 with 48 views which has multiple items, has sold some and is newer - I would have expected it to come up first because everything statistically about it would seem to be better. Items with multiple quantity that have sold in the last day or two all are ahead of the 2800 view one.

[coxengines]

Best Match is a piece of work lol.

When I last downloaded the patent application for it, it was over 80 pages long. It has evolved since.

I test BM on a regular basis employing "Spider Traps" to evaluate performance. The problem is that eBay keeps tweaking the algorythm. Some things that help:

High FB score and general compliance
High DRS in shipping cost (the other DSR's are irrelevant)
# of sales per listed item (turover quotient)
Funnel conversion of imprints to clicks
Funnel conversion of clicks to sales
Title relevance (repeated imprints with no clicks results in BoP)
Low / free shipping costs

There is more to it but the above is a start.

Bernie

[zarzuella]

And then, of course, we are all making the assumption that the coding is accurate and the algorythm is programmed correctly :^O

Ann

[Anonymous]

And here I thought that website search engine optimization (SEO) was arcane ... yikes.

Just writing a good item title is an art in itself, I guess! :^O

[ricarmic]

THX Xenalook for putting up that list, that speaks to some of the things I have also been observing. I completely agree that they keep changing the "formula" because it seems just when I have something working, it stops and something else starts working, makes it hard to keep up.

The Shipping cost DSR being most relevant is interesting, mine is high because I'm 95% "free shipping" and that DSR is my best.

Recently I've noticed a link between items with similar titles, as an example, once I sold an "Ethiopia" lot, ALL the other ethiopia lots went within a day or two, this seems to happen fairly regularly. It takes me a few days to get another batch up and they sit until the first one goes then a bunch more go.

Another thing that seems to be consistent is some sort of correlation between sales boosting more views/sales, ie if I have a guy buy 10 things, all the sudden I have a bunch of other stuff sell too.

Recently I've also noticed that sales seem to increase after I load a batch of stuff, I normally load 20 to 25 (GTC store) things at a time (against a running total of about 1,250). Generally I load around lunchtime, mid evening or later evening. The sales do not come from the loaded stuff (since October when they stopped favouring new items), they come from other stuff, so it seems that there is some relationship between loading more items and increased visibility too.

Trying to figure/stay on top of this stuff is quite challenging, I guess it helps keep our jobs from being boring!

[coxengines]

Shipping cost DSR is only one factor and there are many others.

Yes, like titles will trigger the keyword relevance factor.

correlation between sales boosting more views/sales - Correct.

New listings still get a temporary boost.

Bernie

[ricarmic]

Other things I have noticed..
-whilst watching a specific category, I am seeing that the primarily interspersed lots (aka sellers) is rotating, and the rotation includes non TRS too. That was confounding me because I wouldn’t have expected non TRSs to come ahead of me or some of the other guys who sell more than me. However I put my “customer” hat on and realized that if I go to a certain search/list repeatedly and every time the interspersed stuff I see is “Ron’s” I’ll probably get bored of that and start looking other places or change my search. This leads me to believe that there is some sort of timing “demotion” or inversely a “promotion” below/above the standard rules that ensures the same seller’s stuff isn’t interspersed continuously in the same search results. Not sure of the timing, certainly days is my best guess.
-another thing I’ve noticed is the bursts of sales from different locations. I ship M/W/F and I’ve noticed significant trends where the vast majority of Monday’s stuff is Canadians, Wednesday’s stuff is mostly Americans and the next Monday is mostly international (Today HALF are from Spain!). This would also lead me to believe that my stuff is “promoted” or “demoted” to a given locale outside the normal standard rules as well. Not sure if it is done via site (I only list on .COM) or how, but statistically I shouldn’t see 90% of (20) sales to Canadians in one day then normal for a while then 90% again a week or so later. (The effect of this might be why I am seeing my stuff more absent at times on my search in .COM in the example above as I do all my research so far on .COM only)

Both of the above do make sense from a “make sure the customer doesn’t see the same guys stuff repeatedly over too long a time period” perspective, so I suspect there is something about this in the best match formula too.

[ricarmic]

Another interesting note. A fellow that suddenly had his stuff all over the top stuff of search results had me interested so I watched his sales, he has few sales but he had one sale of an item for $5,000 and all the sudden everything else he had up was at the front of the results page. That was a while ago, his stuff is slowly dropping again. So the amount of the sale has a lot to do with it. I had though previously it was number of sales but it appears one really good sale has a big impact as well even if you don't normally sell a lot. Now all I need to do is sell some $5,000 items!!!!

[femmefan1946]

-another thing I’ve noticed is the bursts of sales from different locations.

This sort of "rolling blackout" has been noted over and over, but no one has ever been able to confirm it. Your explanation is more optimistic than most, which usually complain that some of eBay's servers are being blacked out for a particular geographic area or turned on for another.

The "boredom" criterion is interesting!