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

[deanosaur1972]

If I was looking for an MG Midget Car birthday card I would put those keywords into the search bar. The same goes for postcards, toys etc. Also the search on eBid is not a search engine it's a search facility. IMO these are not the same.

Gill, if you had an MG Midget Car Birthday Card for sale and a MG Midget fanatic came on site and searched for MG Midget Car, would you be happy that your card was not available to them? Their search is open and they want anything connected with MG Midget Car, whether is art work, cards, hats... anything. But they would go away from eBid because nothing would be available for them to purchase, yet there could well be 100's of items of interest.

Likewise, a new browser on eBid, searches for new baby pushchair - so under what you propose it takes them straight to the category. Maybe they don't see anything suitable or competitive, so away they go. However if they had seen your new baby card - they may have signed up to eBid and purchased the item, so a potential lost sale and a lost new sign up. The item is relevant to their search and that is exactly the way to sell cards.

The amount of examples like this run into the many 1,000's - I know I would have lost 100's of sales if the search was not returning what people were looking for. The implications could be far reaching - a lot of items could be impossible to sell because of keyword/category crossover. This is why all search engines/facilities don't do this (or at least I don't know of one that does).

[adruml]

Searches need to be according to keywords in the listing title...period! Only logical way to search. You want to search women's shorts then search in clothes category.
If one is interested in, let's say Germany 1942 and several items show in a search then gee duh every seller with Germany 1942 in title will show up. After all that IS WHAT YOU SEARCHED FOR!!

What is wrong for example is when someone searches for a drum set and has to weed through listings with titles such as "cymbals for drum set" drumsticks for drum set, or any other manipulated title versions to get views".

[titanicmom4]

If I was looking for an MG Midget Car birthday card I would put those keywords into the search bar. The same goes for postcards, toys etc.

I want other relevant items to show when someone is searching for something; Lots of sales are made to people who found something they didnt even know they wanted or needed until they saw it. Not only online but in brick and mortar stores as well. Dept. stores make their living off of impulse buys, if the buyer does not see it the seller cannot sell it and it is a loss for both. I happen to love toys and Cabbage Patch Dolls, after years of collecting I STILL don't know everything that is out there so when I am in the mood to search around I put a vague search for Cabbage Patch and browse or refine that to whatever suits my fancy at the time, this way I get to see (ideally anyway) anything out there with that in the title, I am not limited to only looking at dolls or what have you. A lot of buyers are like that. I work in a busy dept. store and people meander in there browsing and picking up things they didnt know existed till they saw them. How many times have you gone in a store and while checking out said "gee I only came in for toilet paper" ?

I must say I have enjoyed reading this thread and I thank you for posting it. It got me to look at my auction titles and change some of them up a bit so as to turn up in more searches.

Oh and one last thing, whatever the heck ebay did with their search engine is the number one reason I do not sell there anymore. Why would I want to pay to list something that can ultimately be buried and never seen even if I have all the searched keywords in my title?

[astral276]

How many times have you gone in a store and while checking out said "gee I only came in for toilet paper" ?

The last time I soiled myself while out shopping?

[titanicmom4]

The last time I soiled myself while out shopping?

LOL Mel, so funny But you'd be surprised how many people actually do that. Some are even repeat offenders eeeewwwww, it is never a fun time for anyone around them then.

[titanicmom4]

guess I should have used milk or something in my example, toilet paper was just the first thing popped in my head.
lol