ebay just killed wildcard (*) searches - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: benemorius
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2012, 03:54:56 am
content: WHAT THE FUCK???Who else has noticed this so far? I'm a little surprised that it hasn't come up here yet given how many of us are known to pick up gear on ebay. It was working for me a day or two ago. Now almost all of my saved searches are returning no results.So what happens now? Will their income from sales plummet so much that they quickly reverse the change, or are they making so much from other sales that it won't even matter? Initially I laughed, assuming that the former was so. On second thought, I'm fearing that the latter may be the case.In any case, it goes without saying that this is shocking and appalling.

author: poodyp
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2012, 04:26:41 am
content: I got an email about this a few weeks ago and meant to rage about it but had other things to do.They say "their search is improved so you don't need wildcards" because now you can search for handbag and also get handbags. Which seems to suggest they think their only users are housewives looking for fashion accessories.Their suggestion is to use OR searches like (this,that). I know I sure as hell am not going to style out every tek 2400 series scope model number.

author: Ed.Kloonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2012, 05:21:48 am
content: Ebay sucks a little more today.

author: Nirios
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2012, 06:14:28 am
content: Here is more info about * searches:http://www.ebaypartnernetworkblog.com/en/wildcardfaq/Looks like they removed it because it caused too high a server load. What a crock of ...

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2012, 06:43:33 am
content: This sounds like the same thing that happened (or is happening) to Google. The majority of users are idiots who type questions into the search bar and misspell everything, so now you get a bunch of other crap you need to filter through instead of what you're looking for, and it sometimes substitutes completely opposite(!!!) words in your query.Plus, "compressing"/rewriting the queries this way does save them resources.

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2012, 08:14:31 am
content: I'm finding myself using quotation marks around words more as time goes on, because search engines have shitty habit of substituting my keywords with something else.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 09, 2012, 11:42:58 am
content: Ebay are dicks. That's all.Dave.

author: saturation
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2012, 12:32:41 pm
content: Yes it does collectively. You'll find many forum software that warn about use of wildcard searches, eBay is no different. Its easier via a lookup table on the CPU:So substitute:old style: HP 123*recommend: HPx(123, 1234, 12345, 123456)x= add "-" to ignore terms or "+" as alternate search terms, using "+" symbol is optional.Quote from: Nirios on November 09, 2012, 06:14:28 am

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2012, 01:42:01 pm
content: The new site they've put in is horrendous in general. 0 steps forward, 20 steps back.

author: andersm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 09, 2012, 04:47:06 pm
content: Have you sent actual examples of the kinds of searches you used together with explanations on why the new system doesn't cover them to eBay's support?

author: george graves
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2012, 03:12:26 am
content: How there isn't a decent competitor to ebay is mind boggling....

author: Wartex
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2012, 03:23:59 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on November 09, 2012, 01:42:01 pmWe know how style change worked out for Digg.com (bankrupcy)

author: Wartex
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2012, 03:36:47 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on November 09, 2012, 11:42:58 amLet me tell you something about dicks.Bought an item on ebay, seller is from UK. Instead of charging my credit card in GBP and let my CC company handle the conversion like every other site does, the paypal converted GBP into canadian dollars at a shitty rate and charged my CC in canadian dollars. I can live with that. Seller could not ship and issued a refund. Paypal takes his money in GPB, converts in to CAD but at much, much shittier rate again and deposits about 5% less money into my CC. How the fuck is that a refund? When I shop in europe and get a refund at a store, I get ALL the money back. Fucking crooks.PS:https://www.google.ca/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:EBAY

author: itdontgo
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2012, 09:28:37 am
content: Quote from: Wartex on November 11, 2012, 03:36:47 amBut the ten year view shows they're very much on an upward trend so it's more the Titanic rising from the ocean.

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2012, 09:58:17 am
content: I was going to complain at eBay over this, because a lot of my searches were like "pic10f*"But it seems that searching for just "pic10f" does the same thing as the wildcard search used to do (prefix matching is not just for plurals?), so I'm left without a good example of why I needed wildcards. Are you sure you have one?

author: benemorius
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2012, 01:07:13 pm
content: Quote from: westfw on November 11, 2012, 09:58:17 amQuite sure. It's lucky when there happens to be a break from alpha to numeric or the other way around right where you want to stop. As you say, it's just like there's a *. But no such luck if you want to stop in the middle of a numeric sequence. "pic10f" returns 50 results or so; "pic10f2" returns none. A few days ago "pic10f2*" would still have returned results, I trust. So now if you want to find "pic10f2*" the only way (as far as I can tell) is to type out each full part number.