posted on November 9, 2005 07:13:24 AM new
In the past couple of days, I have done a couple of ebay searches that are NOT pulling up stuff properly. I type in "depression glass" /within Title ONLY, and a lot of listings come up that do not have 'depression' nor 'glass' in the titles. ... also "antique stained glass lamp"; lamps come up that do not have those words in it.
posted on November 9, 2005 07:38:06 AM new
I searched on the 'advanced search' page, and typed those words into search, and did NOT have the box checked for "search title and descrip" ... I also have done it from the www.ebay.com main page. Still, it brings listings that do not have those words in it. (and I do not use 'quote marks' which would ask for that exact phrase).
posted on November 9, 2005 07:38:18 AM new
Okay, I think I might have figured this out.
If you use an "All of these words" search on depression glass and DON'T put the phrase in double quotes, your list of results will include items that are listed in any sub-category that contains the word Depression.
For example, this item would come up in such a search:
It looks to me what whoever rewrote the search algorithm simply ASSUMED that since all items are always in the correct categories (yeah, right!), why not bundle a general category search into a keyword search?
Sloppy programming. Absolutely shameful.
This is why you get 10,000 more results when you search on depression glass and specify "All of these words" than you do if you specify "Exact phrase".
This verifies my frequent suspicion that eBay programmers don't even use eBay themselves.
posted on November 9, 2005 07:41:59 AM new
Yep! ... I follow the criteria for this statement from ebay:
Your goal: You're looking for items where two or more keywords are all present.
Command: Just enter the keywords with a space between them.
Example search: Wedgwood cups blue
Returns: Items with all three words in the title in any order
posted on November 9, 2005 08:34:09 AM new
You're absolutely right Fluff.
Search relevance for eBay translates into revenue enhancement by way of up-charging for every imaginable "billboard" feature,e.g. purple boxes,featured this and that,bold, banner ads,etc..All of which beg the issue of just how meat-fisted the underlying algorithms really are.
Even when they try to copy Amazon's Review / Recommendation feature they get it wrong by failing to integrate it logically into the buying process.
eBay is top to bottom a perfect storm of middle managers who understand their franchise as first and foremost something to protect,amortize and never truly challenge.
Contrast them to Google, where the science and importance of search relevance is understood in the context of their advertising model:the more relevant the search, the more advertisers compete for display.
Meg should've scraped a billion or so off the Skype purchase and hired the entire graduating class from every campus of IIT.
Best,
Michael
---------------------------
Internet Talk Radio
Everything eBay...and More. E-Auction-Air
posted on November 9, 2005 08:39:44 AM new
In the silver lining department, when I'm selling carnival glass, I know that I can get away without including "carnival glass" in the title (if I'm short on space), because it will still be found.
posted on November 9, 2005 09:37:56 AM new
What an interesting discussion! Bums me out, too, to think of all the space I give to the actual category words. But I'm afraid not to do that.
______________________________
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.
posted on November 9, 2005 09:46:32 AM newContrast them to Google, where the science and importance of search relevance is understood in the context of their advertising model:the more relevant the search, the more advertisers compete for display
Truer words were never spoken. Does anyone remember Alta Vista? They were once the hot search engine, pre-Google. While Google is constantly refining their algorithms, Alta Vista became increasingly less useful as you got page after page of dead links or or lists of porn links when you weren't looking for porn. Finally they figured out they were in trouble, and what did they do? They redesigned their logo. The president of the company said their problem was that people thought the mountains on their old logo were too distant and cold-looking.
I likened this to going to the Monterey Aquarium to see the fish and discovering that half of them are floating hooters-up because management decided it would be less expensive to redesign the sign out front than to feed the fish.
posted on November 9, 2005 01:54:00 PM new
LOL, love the fish analogy!
Thats it, re-describe the facts until the "facts" coincide with the experience.
Marginalize any evidence to the contrary as an anecdotal, user-specific anomaly.
Google is knitting together the next wave on the web. Each part: Froogle,Earth,IM,Picasa and the soon-to-be Google Base & Wallet are each parts of what will be, IMHO, a precisely engineered whole. While taken individually, most are not the killer apps of competitive rivals but they don't have to be;the end-game for Google is a unified experience wherein relevance, simplicity and inter- interoperability are paramount.
"Disruptive" is the preferred term and disruptive it will be. And not content with merely unifying search relevance with transaction simplicity, Google is aggressively buying up miles of surplus fiber optic network (Dark Fiber)...the purpose being what could be a parallel web, an information and transaction super-hwy..in essence,the same thinking as supports toll-ways. But the "toll" will be leveraged not upon user(searcher) access but from the billions of advertising dollars that are fueling the growth of Google currently.
Practically every tenet of traditional advertising,from branding to impressions is under siege. Will Wallet, etc. be free? Don't think so..but the cost of whatever service there is will be subsidized by the advertising spend of those hungry to be around the well-defined search results. Its already there: AdSense / AdWords...before the www, relevance was essentially propaganda.
The old saw in advertising had been:"25% of my advertising dollars result in sales; the trouble is, I don't know which 25%".
Until Sergy & Larry listened to Omid Kordestani, all Google was was an ingenious search solution. Omid convinced them that relevant advertising would make the idea pay...and pay it has. Traditional advertising is a blunderbuss compared to Google's laser.
Thus Google has created an economic model that recognizes and rewards all players..everyone wants relevance and thus the cost of participation is shared across a much wider construct than any particular site.
Small sellers, such as myself, will ultimately be faced with the fact that the more transparent the web, the more relevant the search, the tighter competition will be.
There will be no where to hide your premium price for goods unless you have either that rarest of things, a unique item or some collateralizing service / feature to justify the price.
I'm not smitten by Google per se, it can fail and the history of business is littered with fallen giants. I share the very legitimate concern of many re so much information in the hands of one company and have always thought "Do No Harm" as a company motto most alarming in that "harm" might just be what Google says it is.
But so far as the future is concerned, I'd have to say the aquarium is under new management.
Best,
Michael
---------------------------
Internet Talk Radio
Everything eBay...and More. E-Auction-Air
