spazmodeus
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posted on April 7, 2001 02:31:28 PM
I did a title/description search for key words in the description portion of auctions I posted 40 hours ago. My auctions were not shown in the search results.
I have noticed that eBay's indexing of item descriptions is taking far, far longer than it ever has before. It used to take 24 hours max, now we're almost at the two-day mark and my auctions still aren't showing up in search results. I'm certain this explains the absence of any bids on those items.
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reddeer
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posted on April 7, 2001 03:12:15 PM
Hiya Spaz
It's pretty sad, isn't it? I recall someone mentioning the fact that items listed with the eBay "Gallery" feature get indexed sooner, have you heard that?
Since then I've been paying the 25 cents just so my items make it into search, before the week is up.
I just checked 2 items of mine that were listed last night. These 2 auctions have the same key words in them & when I searched only one is showing up in search.
The one showing up in search was listed last night at 19:43 The one listed earlier at 18:29 is not showing up in search?
Go figure?
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spazmodeus
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posted on April 7, 2001 03:30:47 PM
Hi Neil,
I have about 40-50 specific searches bookmarked for my own buying/collecting purposes. Of those, I'd say 90% are title/description searches. I check them almost nightly.
Lately, I've seen items turn up for the first time with only two or three days left in the auction. These weren't 5 or 3 day auctions either. They were seven day runs. It's the worst I've seen it in three years -- despite the big back-patting session they gave themselves last year after supposedly making the indexing faster than ever before.
I don't know about gallery favoritism, haven't heard anything about that. But I would believe it.
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reddeer
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posted on April 7, 2001 05:28:28 PM
Spaz
Sorry, I should have been more clear in my last post. It was a "description" search that I was performing.
I read about the Gallery search indexing sooner than the non Gallery items on the DNF.
It must have been a month or so back, and several people were discussing it. Some of them said they use Gallery on all items now because they would then be assured of hitting the search index much sooner than the items they listed without Gallery.
I'm going to go do a few title searches on the items I listed last night & will report back here with the results.
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reddeer
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posted on April 7, 2001 05:32:40 PM
Ok, all of my items listed last night are coming up when doing a title search.
I'm also using the Gallery feature on all of those items.
Maybe someone with more knowledge on the Gallery/Search situation will post here with more detailed info?
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spazmodeus
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posted on April 7, 2001 05:43:57 PM
Neil,
I'm okay with the title searches -- it's the description search that's screwing me over.
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surrrfurtom
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posted on April 7, 2001 05:47:37 PM
You are correct and some of my items listed 2 days ago are not showing up yet in description search.
Here is an easy method I use to determine if my items are indexed. I add a unique alpha numeric character set (say 6-8 characters) to all my descriptions. But before you add it verify if anyone else is using it by doing a description search.
Once you have included the code on all descriptions you just do a search for that code and all your indexed auctions will show up. Compare the number of auctions with the number under your seller ID search. If they are the same your auctions are all indexed.
Another use for this code is say you want to do a search for all the books or some other sub category that you have listed. Just enter books + the code and the description query will give you the items.
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reddeer
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posted on April 7, 2001 06:05:28 PM
Spaz
If it makes you feel any better, it looks like several of mine aren't showing up in description search either.
And I paid the *%@ 25 cent extortion fee!
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CleverGirl
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posted on April 7, 2001 07:03:28 PM
I'm getting so sick of ebay.
And the lucky-for-them fact is that there are so many auctions, so many users, that these problems don't show up for huge numbers of people who SHOULD know about it since it affects their business.
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surrrfurtom
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posted on April 7, 2001 07:06:37 PM
This is what eBay says about missing auctions.
"For one reason or another from what I can see, these auctions were not indexed in the title & description search. Once a change in your auction occurs such as a bid, the auctions will be reindexed and available with through the description search."
The problem is the item is less likely to get a bid if the auctions aren't searchable. That means it may never be description searchable. If the item listing is changed that might cause it to be re-indexed. However as I recollect, eBay has some hangups on that too, such as it will not be re-indexed if the modified listing happens to get a bid before it is re-indexed.
I think the best bet is to cancel them and relist and then request credit. A pain in the butt.
This problem happens regularly. So keep an eye on them.
[ edited by surrrfurtom on Apr 7, 2001 07:08 PM ]
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spazmodeus
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posted on April 7, 2001 07:14:36 PM
I've had the understanding for awhile now that description indexing is supposed to occur an hour or two after the auction is listed, and whatever's there at the time of indexing is what will be included. Anything added after the first indexing does not get into the description search; however, changes to the title will be taken into account with every reindexing. So the title gets reindexed, but the description does not.
But even so, my descriptions should have been indexed with the first sweep, since they were not added afterwards. Yet they still don't come up.
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smw
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posted on April 7, 2001 07:20:24 PM
I promised myself a few days away from the box and *stupidly* checked auctions I listed yesterday, and they are no where to be found on Search.
So the consensus is that Description search is more than 40 hours behind, and Title search is more than 24 hours behind.
Therefore, it is possible that I can search on Title only and find an auction (+/- 24 hours behind), however, if I search on Title and Description using the exact same terms I won't find the auction that came up on Title search?, (+/- 40 hours behind).
This means that some auctions listed on *Thursday* will not come up on Title and Description search. It boggles my mind to think of how far will it be behind after the Sunday listing crunch.
Would I be correct in thinking that eBay indexing bits and pieces of auctions in various cycles isn't one of its more well thought out choices?
As an aside there is a green light next to Search on the bizarre new board. Seems to me that a 40 hour lag time in indexing is a problem and there should not be a green light.
Does anyone know if eBay is screwing around with anything that could be taking up most of its resources pushing indexing this far behind?
Reddeer: Extortion is descriptive....
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smw
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posted on April 7, 2001 07:39:15 PM
Surrrfurtom: Are you saying that eBay routinely just doesn't index auctions at random? Does this mean it is the luck of the draw if your auction gets indexed? That auctions are indexed on a hit or miss basis? I was under the impression that indexing was done in cycles by time cut offs and everything in the database that was listed in a specific time period filters through the indexing process. I believe eBay calls this "touching".
BTW Ebay is full of hot air about an auction being re-indexed after it gets a bid.
More often than not if I look at an auction that happened to make it into search, and it has no bids, and ends say in a few hours, when I look at the auction page itself there are often multiple bids over a period of days. So getting a bid on an auction doesn't offer a lot of hope that it will be indexed. Assuming of course that someone can find it to bid on it in the first place.
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spazmodeus
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posted on April 7, 2001 07:56:52 PM
I was under the impression that indexing was done in cycles by time cut offs and everything in the database that was listed in a specific time period filters through the indexing process. I believe eBay calls this "touching".
My impression too, though I never heard of "touching" (sounds rather intimate, doesn't it?)
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surrrfurtom
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posted on April 7, 2001 08:14:59 PM
smw
I've had this happen before and I believe they gave basically the same answer then. It does sound like a random bug that causes a some auction listings not to be indexed for description search.
I used to check indexing regularly by comparing the search counts of seller ID vs. description as mentioned in my previous post. More often than not there's a difference which I usually let slide. This thread prompted me to check them again and identify exactly what auctions weren't showing up. eBays response tonight was shown above.
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smw
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posted on April 7, 2001 08:19:19 PM
It is a term that the so called engineers have used on the AB from time to time when trying to justify not extending auctions after an outage. Saying that it would take more time to "touch" each auction to extend it than the time that was lost.
I understand it to mean that anytime eBay puts an auction through an indexing cycle or makes any changes it is "touched". (By whom or what I have no idea.) I don't like the sound of the word touch in this context either. It sort of gives me the willies.
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jcmaya
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posted on April 7, 2001 09:58:51 PM
I have had items that never got indexed. I would check from the site map "Where is a item". One was a vase, it was never indexed, did not show up in searches, and was not in the going, going, gone list at the time it was supposed to close. Closed without any bidders and just a few hits. I relisted it, and it sold within 2 hours.
I have had this problem during the last month. I tried revising the auctions and that did not seem to make the difference. When I wrote Ebay, they said try using "Where is an Item" duh. My question is, if I use forward slash / in a title like glass/tumbler would this cause it not to be indexed? Hope they figure it out. Maybe thats why we all get a lot of bids in the last hours, because they are on the closing page. Just a thought.
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IBStitchin
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posted on April 8, 2001 08:11:00 AM
I'm glad it's not just me! I posted a few auctions Friday and paid the gallery fee so I could link to gallery pics. Only 2 out of 5 are showing up in the link. The 2 that do show up have bids but who knows if the have bids BECAUSE they show up or they show up BECAUSE they have bids! I have more I planned on listing today but I don't know if I want to waste the money.
Lora
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reddeer
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posted on April 8, 2001 08:33:19 AM
Just a FYI
If you happen to revise an auctions description, before it's been indexed into search, it will NEVER be indexed into search. I just realized why one of my 2 items is still not coming up with a description search, I revised it shortly after listing it.
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surrrfurtom
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posted on April 8, 2001 08:54:26 AM
I received a further response from eBay:
"Thank you for letting us know that your item cannot be found through a search. Our engineers are currently investigating this to see why items were not being indexed into the search. We hope to have this corrected as quickly as possible.
In the meantime, you may want to end your item and relist it so that it will be searchable. You can do that by first getting the item number, then going to:
http://cgi3.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?EndingMyAuction
Please accept our apology for any inconvenience this has caused."
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reddeer
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posted on April 8, 2001 08:57:24 AM
Our engineers are currently investigating this to see why items were not being indexed into the search.
eBay has been aware of this "glitch" for months now. Obviously it's not on the priority list.
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CleverGirl
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posted on April 8, 2001 09:19:22 AM
END your item and relist it? So they can get a 2nd listing fee? (I notice they didn't offer to credit the first listing fee! And ending it and then relisting wouldn't qualify for a free relist if it sold.)
After a while, you begin to get the idea these little glitches serve some purpose for ebay, eh?
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toke
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posted on April 8, 2001 09:24:41 AM
Here's the thread from last December on this subject:
http://www.auctionwatch.com/mesg/read.html?num=2&thread=301842&id=301842
**especially concerning revisions and their effect on Search**
[ edited by toke on Apr 8, 2001 09:26 AM ]
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reddeer
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posted on April 8, 2001 09:51:45 AM
Thanks Toke!
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spazmodeus
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posted on April 9, 2001 02:32:21 AM
Is there any consensus as to how long it normally takes for item descriptions to be indexed after an auction is launched? Has eBay ever put it in writing?
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escandyo
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posted on April 9, 2001 06:36:50 AM
Reddeer, I am speechless. I can't count the times I have went back into one of my auctions to change a misspelled word or other typo...now, to hear this could have kept it from search...makes me MAD.
I was checking on alot of books yesterday, noticed I always found MANY more in the completed auctions, than in active. I suppose I will have to check the ones I have running. This is sickening. If Ebay has been aware of this problem for such a long period, somehow they should be held liable.
Thanks for the tip on number insertion, new trick I'll have to start using. But, like there isn't enough to do without having to go back and check on whether your auction is "visible" or not!
Just another thought, I bid and won an auction last night. Great book. I bid on it 1 1/2 hours before closing, and it never showed on the page, only on the bid history. It wasn't that I needed to refresh the page...I logged off the puter twice in that period and it never showed. Weird. I was the only bidder. So--does that possibly mean her auction might never have been searchable and fell through the cracks until I bid, then didn't get in the search due to the cycle periods?
Almost makes me want to start the auctions with a silly low bid, then bid the amount I actually would have asked in the first place. Not an attempt to shill, but...if you must have a bid to get in the search earlier, what else is left?
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spazmodeus
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posted on April 10, 2001 04:11:26 AM
The title/description indexing problem is still occurring. Some items I listed on Sunday were indexed within 10 hours, but just as many were not and remain unindexed almost two days later.
I found this on the Announcement Board:
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User: [email protected]
Date: 04/09/2001
Time: 22:19:56 PDT
*** Description Search Delay ***
Indexing for certain items in Description Search is approximately 24 hours behind.
Title Search continues to index during regular 2-3 hour intervals and is not affected by the issue impacting Description Search.
We are currently working on solving this issue, and anticipate that Description Search will be back to its normal 10-14 hour indexing cycle in about 24 hours.
Regards,
eBay
----------------------------------------
Why do they have to "work on solving this issue?" I don't get it. Haven't they been doing this for YEARS now? Shouldn't they know how the system works inside and out by this point?
These delays are killing me.
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kudzurose
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posted on April 10, 2001 06:36:42 AM
What's up with this? I posted a new thread on the eBay SEARCH discussion board, complaining that two of my auctions started Saturday night were still not searchable by description over 55 hours later; about 45 minutes later, they are fixed. Coincidence???
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PayingFast
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posted on April 10, 2001 06:49:16 AM
We have the same problem at least 3 times a week with ebay. When doing a description search for our banners, only about half of the auctions come up. The updated time at the bottom of the search result page shows hours earlier, while current auctions are expiring.
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reddeer
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posted on April 10, 2001 06:53:09 AM
4 days later & the Description Search is just now picking up my revised auction. Unreal
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