'pj', I still buy fairly often on eBay (under another ID), so I've had a buyer's perspective on the search issue as well.
On a number of occasions over the past few months, I've tried to locate an item that I had purchased last year because I needed another one. In one example, I actually knew the seller was still around because he was on my saved (favourites) list. However, I did the initial search by keywords -- and here's thing -- I used the same keywords I had used the year before, yet his items didn't appear in the list! I knew there were there, so I persisted.
I really had to use some workarounds and filtering to finally get a search results list that included his items. I kept thinking that if I was having this much trouble, as an experienced user, how would a newcomer find exactly what they were after. Or worse, how many items that actually matched their criteria would not be displayed? As I say, this odd result has happened on numerous occasions for me.
As a fairly frequent buyer on eBay, I have seen distinct changes in the way searches display items, particularly over the past few months, but what exactly is going on in the background is probably impossible to know unless eBay gives us more information (which they likely won't).
So I doubt this is a temporary glitch, but some kind of shift in the search paradigm.
At any rate, it's something that will affect both buyers and sellers. As a couple of posters have pointed out (and as I've experienced myself), Amazon does do a much better job of putting relevant items together with buyers quickly and easily.
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