What's with ebay?

t206wagner · #1 01-16-2010, 10:05 PM

Hi Fred,

You don't have to use the parenthesis if you put the minus sign in front of each word you want to exclude. It is similar to an algebra equation where you just list each thing indivually rather than grouping them together.

williamcohon · #2 01-17-2010, 01:40 AM

Thank you, guys, for the suggestion regarding excluding words by using a minus sign.

I tried it, and it turns out that it is necessary to leave a space before the minus sign. Also, the parentheses method works better. I don't know why, but if you just list "t206 -rp-reprint-topps" the search engine still provides plenty of the offending reprints. But, if you use t206 -(rp,reprint,topps,2009), you're going to have the same good time you had five years ago.

I thought David made a good point about how this procedure will also exclude items whose descriptions contain the words "not a reprint." But maybe it's a fair price to pay for a reprint-free and topps-free experience. The happy hunting might just be worth it!!!

timzcardz · #3 01-19-2010, 08:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by t206wagner

Hi Fred,

You don't have to use the parenthesis if you put the minus sign in front of each word you want to exclude. It is similar to an algebra equation where you just list each thing indivually rather than grouping them together.

Quote:

Originally Posted by williamcohon

Thank you, guys, for the suggestion regarding excluding words by using a minus sign.

I tried it, and it turns out that it is necessary to leave a space before the minus sign. Also, the parentheses method works better. I don't know why, but if you just list "t206 -rp-reprint-topps" the search engine still provides plenty of the offending reprints. But, if you use t206 -(rp,reprint,topps,2009), you're going to have the same good time you had five years ago.

I thought David made a good point about how this procedure will also exclude items whose descriptions contain the words "not a reprint." But maybe it's a fair price to pay for a reprint-free and topps-free experience. The happy hunting might just be worth it!!!

Not quite the same as an algebraic equation. (Actually, it works on Boolean algebra)

When you do a search and list the criteria, without parentheses, such as

SEARCH: 1 2 -3 -4 (where 1, 2, 3, and 4 are search criteria)

it reads each space as an "AND" thereby looking for search criterion 1 AND search criterion 2 AND not (if a minus sign is used) search criterion 3 AND not seach criterion 4

When items are placed in parentheses it is the equivalent of saying OR.

SEARCH: 1 2 -(3,4)

is read as search criterion 1 AND search criterion 2 AND not (if a minus sign is used) search criteria 3 OR 4.

Only one of the "OR" criteria need be present to exclude the listing from the search. This is an important differentiation you are trying misspelling variations like (topp,topps,top) for a positive search and not elimination.

DaveW · #4 01-19-2010, 12:24 PM

Also, if you click on US Only or North America (under Location in the preferences
on the left side of the screen) you will eliminate all the crap from China.

Anthony S. · #5 01-19-2010, 12:33 PM

My standard search for T212's bridging all categories lists over 30 words in the negative parentheses including such seemingly unrelated items as "barbie", "Dickens" (there isn't a Charles Dicken's Barbie is there? I can't imagine that'd be a big seller), "tiara", "woofers", and "Tibetan." Truly amazing how much stuff (read: crap) has been has been dubbed T212 over the years.

erstevens · #6 01-19-2010, 01:52 PM

There is a character limit on the searches. The limit is "around 100 characters" according to eBay. I believe the searches used to be less restrictive. Some of my older searches include many terms and always worked fine. Recently, those same searches give me the 100 character warning.

Anthony S. · #7 01-19-2010, 01:58 PM

There is a character limit on searches, but it's more than 100 characters, as my T212 search has 33 words in the negative parentheses separated by commas (but no spaces), as well as 4 words in the positive parentheses. I saved that search over a year ago, though, so it could be that they've shortened the character limit for new searches since then.

collectbaseball · #8 01-17-2010, 01:55 AM

I agree that it has become a lot harder to find worthwhile things in recent days. The way they changed categories (in the Sports section anyway) makes absolutely no sense, and between exorbitant fees and a structure that favors high quantity, fixed price sellers, eBay is completely departing from its roots. Now browsing is near impossible between the fixed price listings and crap from China littering the search results. With any luck, Google will come out with an auction service in the near future. They have already developed a PayPal competitor in Google Checkout. Okay... done with the rant -- now an attempt to be helpful.

In case anyone doesn't know them already, here are various eBay search operators explained:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/search/search-commands.html

I especially like the wildcard (*). You can use it to find things you might otherwise miss -- for example a search that is: Hank Aaron (auto*,sig*) will turn up anything that has Hank Aaron and any word beginning with those roots -- auto, autograph, autographed, sig, signature, signed, etc. The same can be done to eliminate reprints -- a search that is: t206 -(rp,repr*) will show anything that has t206 in the title and exclude any auctions that have rp, reprint, repro, reproduction. While these are by no means perfect, they help to knock out a lot of the junk. Look through the various options in the advanced search to find even more ways to optimize a search. You can save searches you use frequently in My eBay so you don't need to type in a long string every time.

You can also get rid of the fixed price listings by clicking the "auctions only" tab at the top.

This link will take you to a search that reveals basically only "legit" Hank Aaron autographs (as in, reprint/fake is not revealed in the title) that are being auctioned off. That allows you to see things listed in categories other than the obvious "Autographs-Original" and gets rid of all overpriced BIN and reprinted 8x10s that are on there.

If you get creative you can produce searches that are pretty effective, though obviously imperfect.

Hopefully everything I said isn't obvious to everybody and helps someone out!

t206wagner · #9 01-17-2010, 07:02 AM

Hi William,

If you put a space between all of the minus signs, this should help with the search. Try -rp -topps - 2009 rather than -rp-topps-2009.

Dave

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