eBay search fails

[Fred Cisin]

Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
> So someone mentioned this to me:
>   https://www.ebay.com/itm/222941705847
> Now, the crazy thing is that I religously do a search for "PDP-11" for newly
> listed items on eBait at least once a day - and this never showed up! I just
> did a search for sold "PDP-11" items, and it's not showing up there either -
> although a search for sold "PDP-11 parts" turns it up!
> Anyone have any idea why it didn't turn up? That is a regular '-', not an
> mdash or anything, and those are 1's, not lower-case l's. And it does show up
> in the search for "PDP-11 parts". So I can only conclude that somehow eBait's
> search function blew out somehow?
> Anyway, someone got a total steal: at least _3_ H960's, a TU10, and an -11/45
> (can't tell if there's an FP11) - and who knows what else is hidden!

> > Ebay's search engine is unusable here in europe for years now.

The URL works for me.
Then, to SEARCH for it, I need to go to "Advanced", and include 
"completed".

It does NOT come up using "PDP-11".
BUT, it comes up with "Digital PDP-11"!


Yes, eBait's search function blows.

I have experienced a number of cases where adding an "OR" (eBay's 
punctuation for that is a comma delimited list in parentheses), will 
REDUCE the number of hits, which it absolutely shouldn't do.
And, I have encountered situations (like this), where an extra ANDed term 
increases the number of hits.

Yes, it IS broken.  You can still make it work.  Most of the time.  But, 
several aspects of it do NOT work as they are intended to.


It also, like Amazon, will try to be "helpful", and include synonyms that 
you did NOT want.
They discontinued wildcards ("comput*"), so you now have to include both 
singular and plural.  SOMETIMES.  Sometimes it will "helpfully" match with 
the other that you didn't include for you.  Sometimes not.

If the bulk of the hits are in one category, it may switch from "ALL 
CATEGORIES" to that category, in defiance of your request.  For example, a 
search for "Nextec" switches from a requested "All Categoires" to a 
category of "Power Tools", cutting out numerous legitimate hits.  (I have 
been looking for the POLE PRUNER that was very briefly part of the Nextec 
(Sears) line, and in the rare cases where there is one, it is usually NOT 
in "Power Tools".)

I suspect that ONE of the problems stems from use of the same character 
to mean both hyphen and minus sign, depending on apaces, other puntuation, 
or context.
Could it be that when using "Digital PDP-11" or "PDP-11 parts", it is 
functioning correctly, but "PDP-11" by itself is causing it to 
misinterpret as a minus sign, to exclude "11".  It certainly SHOULDN'T be 
doing that, but that screw-up coulod account for the behavior.


--
Grumpy Ol' Fred     		cisin at xenosoft.com