www.auctionsieve.com

wickmesh · Posted: Wed May 12, 2021 6:46 am Post subject: Ebay search seems broken?

Something is very broken with ebay's search. I don't think this is an Auctionsieve issue, although if it continues long term AS may need to include measures to combat the problems!

Sieves that normally produce a quantity of results in the high 1000s are finding results in the mid to low 100s. What's happening? 3 observations:

- For many searches ebay is returning nothing (or what ebay is returning, AS is interpreting as nothing). I can watch a sieve (e.g. one I have for computer hard drives) and the 6tb search brings back 100s of results, then the 4tb and 3tb are skipped completely bringing back no results at all, then the 2tb one brings back 100s of results again.

Workaround - spam ebay search. Run the sieve again and again and again. Eventually all of the searches seem to be picked up and you get results. (Each time you run the sieve, you'll get a few more results.)

- When searching ebay directly, ebay seem to decide to change the category in which you are searching. Want to search the whole "Computers/Tablets & Networking" category? No, we can't let you do that, we'll move your search to "Computers/Tablets & NetworkingDrives, Storage & Blank MediaHard Drives (HDD, SSD & NAS)External Hard Disk Drives" as we think that's what you're looking for. (I found this when trying to work out searches for a new sieve yesterday.)

Workaround - run the same search in multiple sub-categories. It's not a perfect fix but at least you get more results than ebay deems fit to show you if you try and search the whole category.

- Some ebay categories are returning no results, despite there being plenty in the sub-categories. For me, "eBayLocal>Wholesale & Job Lots" is showing me no results, despite there being 500+ there early yesterday (and similar for the past few months). Amusingly at the top it tells me there are 112 results. Or 123, or 107 when I repeatedly refresh the page - but still it displays none of them. (I've no idea if this affects categories other than ebay local - also ebay local is a feature that cannot be searched within AS, as it requires inputs that AS does not provide.)

No workaround for this; ebay search is broken.

EDIT - all of this is on ebay.co.uk.

chamalscuro · AuctionSieve guru Joined: 14 May 2007 Posts: 118

I'm seeing this also in (some) full category searches. They quit at 50.

I thought maybe my categories were broken in eBay's new category changes going live, but no my categories aren't affected.

wickmesh · Posted: Wed May 12, 2021 1:46 pm Post subject:

chamalscuro · AuctionSieve guru Joined: 14 May 2007 Posts: 118

On my end anyway, things are looking better. The category searches are fully loading now.

wickmesh · Posted: Thu May 13, 2021 4:15 pm Post subject:

Same here, all seems good again - even the eBay Local search is working as it should be!

nev · Posted: Fri May 14, 2021 8:01 am Post subject:

It's always nice when I have nothing to fix! Very Happy

chamalscuro · AuctionSieve guru Joined: 14 May 2007 Posts: 118

nev · Posted: Fri May 28, 2021 8:01 am Post subject:

I think I've just encountered this.
Instead of ~9000 results I'm only getting ~100

Looking at the pages that ebay is returning to AuctionSieve, sure enough there are only 3 pages, even though it says 9,451 results.

And there's a message:
"We removed some search results to show you the most relevant listings. View all results"

What the heck eBay?

Will see if I can force it somehow.

wickmesh · Posted: Fri May 28, 2021 8:06 am Post subject:

nev · Posted: Mon May 31, 2021 12:54 am Post subject:

Ok, fix is out.
Let me know how it goes.