ebay search function has imploded

[Eric72]

I just ran a simple to search to see what would happen. I typed 1958 williams into the search field. The results were fine. I scrolled through roughly 150 search results. Nearly all of them either immediately made sense...a 1958 Ted Williams baseball card. Most of the ones that didn't immediately make sense had values the seller typed in, such as [Season = 1958] for a '59 Fleer Ted Williams.

I suspect more searches would uncover more of what you're all writing about. However, a quick test run seemed fine to me.

[Rich Falvo]

I'm getting a bunch of bogus hits on an annual player search I already advanced to 2024. The search is basically just "2024 topps player name". I thought I was going crazy trying to find 2024 in any of the listings.

[obcbobd]

Originally Posted by Eric72

I just ran a simple to search to see what would happen. I typed 1958 williams into the search field. The results were fine. I scrolled through roughly 150 search results. Nearly all of them either immediately made sense...a 1958 Ted Williams baseball card. Most of the ones that didn't immediately make sense had values the seller typed in, such as [Season = 1958] for a '59 Fleer Ted Williams.

I suspect more searches would uncover more of what you're all writing about. However, a quick test run seemed fine to me.

I just searched 1958 williams and got 42 results, you got 150!

I then searched 1958 "williams" and got 76 results

In the past I've done searches for a card and then excluded certain words like PSA; adding the exclusion brought up more results.

Very inconsistent

[Eric72]

Originally Posted by obcbobd

I just searched 1958 williams and got 42 results, you got 150...

I got 1,200+ results. I only scrolled through 150 or so listings, searching for 2014 Mookie Betts cards or other such nonsense.

[Mungo Hungo]

Like other have said, it's seemed to me in recent months that ebay searches for the year before and the year after when I search under a recent year. So if I'm searching for "2021," I have to also include "-2020" and "-2022." Unfortunately, that doesn't solve the whole problem, because so many sellers, intentionally or not, use the wrong year to describe a card.

[Bigdaddy]

Originally Posted by obcbobd

In the past I've done searches for a card and then excluded certain words like PSA; adding the exclusion brought up more results.

Very inconsistent

I've had the same experience - excluding certain terms results in more items.

Seems to me they are going the direction of the search on FB Marketplace, where some type of algorithm is being used to pull up similar items. For example, if I search for a Land Cruiser, it will also bring up Lexus LXs, 4Runners and FJ Cruisers. And the further you scroll down the results list, the further away from the original search terms the results stray.

Ebay knows best. They are just trying to help.