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Help: Search

1. How the Search System Works
2. Using Search Terms
3. Avoiding Items with Particular Words
4. Using Phrases
5. Using OR Logic
6. Using eBay Categories
7. About Leaf Categories
8. Narrow your Price Range
9. Disabled Categories

How the Search System Works

For every item that we find on eBay, there are two stages to the search system:

1. Find all of your searches that match the item according to: eBay Site, Category, Minimum Price, Maximum Price, Item Condition (and the optional local search criteria of Postal Code and Minimum Postal Cost).
2. Then, for each of your searches that matches those criteria, it runs your search terms against it to look for a match.

Therefore, the cost of your searches depends upon two things:

1. The number of items that your searches are run against.
2. The number of times your search matches an item that it is run against.

Reduce the cost of your searches by:

1. Reducing the number of items that your search is run against by using the criteria: eBay Site, Category, Minimum Price, Maximum Price, Item Condition (and the optional local search criteria of Postal Code and Minimum Postal Cost).
2. Reducing the number of times your search matches an item by improving your 'seach terms'.

Using Search Terms

Each 'word' in the 'Search Terms' box is a search term - words are search terms.

If you use the letter 'a' as a search term then you search will match items with the letter 'a' in the item title. If you use the word 'calendar' as a search term then your search will match items with the word 'calendar' in the title.

Avoiding Items with Particular Words

Add a 'subtract' character ('-') to the beginning of a word to exclude items that contain that word.

Using Phrases

Put a series of words into double quotes to only find items that contain that phrase.

You can have fairly complex searches. E.g.:
"ian visitor" azerbaijan -canada -"hiking in azerbaijan"

Using OR Logic

As with Ebay itself, you can create search that use 'OR' logic.

E.g. samsung galaxy (s4,s5,s6)
will search for items that include the word 'samsung' AND the word 'galaxy' AND either of 's4', 's5' or 's6'.

You can have fairly complex searches. E.g.:
samsung galaxy (s4,s5,s6) (new,mint,perfect)

Using eBay Categories

In order to help you define your searches accurately, we suggest that you restrict a search to some selected eBay category or categories.

eBay has multiple category levels. Typically there are 35 top level categories on an eBay site, but a total of around 15,000 categories beneath those 35. Setting a search against a top level category is similar to searching about 400 subcategories.

The more specific a category you choose, the cheaper your search. For example:
On the eBay UK site, you could search for a comic book action figure in the top category 'Toys & Games' OR you could seach in the category
Toys & Games > Action Figures > Comic Book Heroes
At the time of writing there are 1,481,540 items in 'Toys & Games', but only 16,200 items in 'Comic Book Heroes'.
This means that, if you restrict your seach to 'Comic Book Heroes' you will use about 1% of the search credits that you would use if you searched in 'Toys & Games'.

About Leaf Categories

All eBay items are listed in 'Leaf Categories' - these are bottom level categories that do not have subcategories. Items cannot be listed in categories that have subcategories - however, you can find items by searching categories that contain other categories.

So, rather than running one search in one top level category, you can use less credits by running searches in a number of the leaf categories. You can do this easily by adding additional bottom level (leaf) categories in the 'edit search' screen.

Narrow your Price Range

Your search will be run against fewer items (and will therefore be cheaper) if you have a narrow price range, rather than a wide one (see How the Search System Works).

For example, a range of $25-$30 may mean that your search is run six times less (using up about six times less credit) than a price range of $0-$30.

There is no point having a maximum price set above the level of existing items that you are searching for on eBay - so keep your maxium price low so that you only get the bargains (unless you are looking for something rare, that you cannot currently find on eBay, and you are not worried about the price).

Having an unrealistically low minimum price will waste your search credits - nobody is going to sell a gold coin for 10% of its real value - so be sensible with your minimum price.

Disabled Categories

There are some categories in the eBay sites that Buy Now Search does not search within. This is because, if we searched those categories, no items would be found. Currently, these categories are:

• Italy
  • Annunci

There are currently no such excluded categories.