I've just done a search for Women shorts, ladies shorts and shorts.

[Gill]

The results:

Women shorts gave me 1902 listings including:
jewellery and watches
books, comics and magazines
cars and vehicles.

Ladies shorts gave me 380 listings including:
collectables
art
business industrial
jewellery watches

Shorts gave me 6725 listings including:
books comics
art
stamps
toys
electronics
cars vehicles
music
house home
dolls
computing

No wonder buyers give up.

[kreativebargains]

The thing with searching is that it will always bring up unexpected results. And in your examples a prospective buyer of ladies shorts would probably then refine the search by selecting the category.

If you do a search in quotes for "ladies shorts" it returns just 2 results. Both in the Clothes, shoes and accessories category.

[astral276]

If you do a search in quotes for "ladies shorts" it returns just 2 results. Both in the Clothes, shoes and accessories category.

What you really need to search for is "Ladies" "Shorts"

Searching on "Ladies Shorts" will not return items with titles of the likes of 'Ladies Blue Cotton Shorts'.

'Ladies' and 'Shorts' are both plurals, so the search engine, unless commanded otherwise, will also return hits on the singulars of 'Lady' and 'Short'.

The failure to match on both singular and plural of words was something sellers were complaining of a while back, and eBid did a lot of work to make the search engine do so.

What it comes down to is users understanding how search engines work and how to get the best out of them.

Probably what could be done is for eBid to place a link 'Searching Tips' in each search box pointing to http://uk.ebid.net/help_bid.php#1

[adruml]

Internal search engine needs a LOT of work. It's terrible.

[suesjools]

What you really need to search for is "Ladies" "Shorts"

Searching on "Ladies Shorts" will not return items with titles of the likes of 'Ladies Blue Cotton Shorts'.

'Ladies' and 'Shorts' are both plurals, so the search engine, unless commanded otherwise, will also return hits on the singulars of 'Lady' and 'Short'.

The failure to match on both singular and plural of words was something sellers were complaining of a while back, and eBid did a lot of work to make the search engine do so.

What it comes down to is users understanding how search engines work and how to get the best out of them.

Probably what could be done is for eBid to place a link 'Searching Tips' in each search box pointing to http://uk.ebid.net/help_bid.php#1

Love this last suggestion, hopefully eBid will see this and implement it.

I usually use quotes in searches and find relevant items, though not as many as I'd like sometimes...

Best wishes for many sales to all,

[deanosaur1972]

The results:

Women shorts gave me 1902 listings including:
jewellery and watches
books, comics and magazines
cars and vehicles.

Ladies shorts gave me 380 listings including:
collectables
art
business industrial
jewellery watches

Shorts gave me 6725 listings including:
books comics
art
stamps
toys
electronics
cars vehicles
music
house home
dolls
computing

No wonder buyers give up.

If you do a search on the other side - it will return an even wilder assortment. The search engine is working properly on your given search terms and all buyers/browsers would be used to those results when searching using only 1 or 2 keywords.

If the search engine started to be presumptive based on keywords used it would result in chaos.

The typical browser will use a low amount of keywords to get as many results as they can - once they have then gained a sort of idea about what they are looking for then they would add more keywords to try and get exactly what they want.

For example if I was looking for some shorts without much idea of what I want, then I would type in men's shorts, go to the clothing category and take a little look through. So then maybe I decide I want cargo shorts, entering a search term of men's cargo shorts will then bring me relevant results..... If I know the colour then I will search for green men's cargo shorts.

A buyer wouldn't give up on the basis of them using a low amount of keywords, the results would be exactly what they would expect to see. This is why buyers will use more keywords in a search to give them exactly what they want, and why a lot of sellers can miss out on sales because they don't use the appropriate keywords.

[crafters_corner]

Understanding how search engines work? Using quotes in a search?

Why on earth would anyone need to do either?

Search for Womans Shorts - as written - on TOS, and 56,068 items come up!!!!!!

Simplification is what is needed.

[deanosaur1972]

Understanding how search engines work? Using quotes in a search?

Why on earth would anyone need to do either?

Search for Womans Shorts - as written - on TOS, and 56,068 items come up!!!!!!

And on TOS it brings up the same wild assortment of categories, including a lot in car parts, books, jewellery, home furnishings, collectables.

So it brings up the same results, just as a buyer would expect.

[tonyreddevil]

so in other words its useless

[crafters_corner]

so in other words its useless

What is?