eBay working on updating their search engine

eBay has confirmed plans to upgrade their search engine to better compete against e-tailing giant Amazon.

"Amazon is on version 8.0 of search. EBay is at 2.0, but they are thinking about how they make this huge leap to 3.0," says Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor. ChannelAdvisor helps merchants sell more online.

eBay's search tech, dubbed "Voyager," has seen a complete overhaul in the last four years after the hiring of Mark Carges as CTO. He hired 100 new employees to bring the total to 150, including several prominent engineers from Microsoft's Bing.

For 2013, the company is working on "Cassini,' the third version of the search engine. Cassini "will trawl full product descriptions, rather than just the titles of listings, and match search queries to photographs of products, while taking into account information about the seller and the buyer," explains Reuters.

Additionally, the new update will take into account past purchases and browsing, making it more tailored to their intent. "Voyager is pretty literal. It takes a query and matches it faithfully against the title of items. It's not intuitive," notes Carges. "Cassini will take the user's query and understand that."

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 6 May 2012 21:30

cart0181

That's stupid, what if you're looking for something you haven't searched for anything similar before?

7.5.2012 01:18 #1

Gdot73

Now they need to sort their robbery seller fees out, and PayPal, it's a skank whenever u sell stuff on there

7.5.2012 07:47 #2

LordRuss

Originally posted by Gdot73: Now they need to sort their robbery seller fees out, and PayPal, it's a skank whenever u sell stuff on there Need to address the skank purchasers/buyers as well.

I get tired of the assholes that buy something & then claim it wasn't what was advertised. Then the powers that be side with the purchaser, leaving the seller penniless. Happens at the pawn shop all the time, thus ruining a decent trade business.

There's only so much of the "customer's always right" adage that can be had. Well you know what? The customer "isn't" always right! That's why business' are aloud to refuse service. Let 'them' choose to lose money on occasion.

I mean look at some of the Wal-Martians that come & go from that department store & tell me abortion shouldn't be legal. Between the old drive-in & the pawn shop (forget the entertainment industry & the military), security tapes from those two places alone would prove that the zombie apocalypse has already started.

Yeah, I've been hit by enough sortie sodomizing sellers, but I've also seen that doubled by bullshit bastard baby buyers too.

http://onlyinrussellsworld.blogspot.com

7.5.2012 12:22 #3

parker313 (unverified)

As far as buying/saving on eBay goes:

If you see an item that you want listed in auction format, send the seller a message asking if they will accept $x to end the auction early and sell the item to you. If that doesn?t work, use a sniping service such as Bidball.com to bid for you. It?ll bid in the last few seconds, helping to save $ and avoid shill bidding.

If there is a particular item that you want that is relatively rare on eBay or goes fast when one is listed, use ebuyersedge.com to set up a saved eBay search for it. You?d get an e-mail whenever a match is listed. You can use the price, category, exclude word, etc. filters to narrow down the results that you get in the e-mails. Excellent for ?Buy It Now?s priced right.

If the item that you?re looking for is difficult to spell, try a misspelling search site like Typojoe.com to find some deals with items that have main keywords misspelled in the title. Other interested buyers may never see them.

7.5.2012 12:48 #4

LordRuss

Originally posted by parker313: If there is a particular item that you want that is relatively rare on eBay or goes fast when one is listed, use ebuyersedge.com to set up a saved eBay search for it. Thanks for the heads-up... There are a couple of things out there I still reminisce about I wouldn't mind finding.

Update: not that it matters, but I actually found a radio that I've been pining for for years since i lost back in the 80s. Thanks again...

http://onlyinrussellsworld.blogspot.com

7.5.2012 13:06 #5

PhilipCohen

�RPT-EBay, Wal-Mart search for revved-up search engines�
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/...E8G1CF820120504

�[Cages] tested eBay's search engine by typing in "iPod." A car topped the list of results because the seller noted in the listing title that it came with an iPod adapter.�

Of course, anyone with even a brain the size of a pea, knows this has nothing to do with search; it has all to do with what the stupid seller puts in the �listing title�.

"More customers, plus better search, means people buy more stuff," eBay Chief Executive John Donahoe said in a recent interview.

Why then is this headless turkey so intent on driving both sellers and buyers away from the eBay marketplace?

�Cassini will trawl full product descriptions, rather than just the titles of listings, and match search queries to photographs of products, while taking into account information about the seller and the buyer.

But, but, but, won�t that pick up the �iPod adapter� even if it is buried deep within the item description? And, photo recognition; now, that should work a treat if eBay programmers have had anything to do with it �

�Historically, the search on eBay has been matching keyword match in the title, and that�s really how we recall search on eBay. What Cassini will now do is will search the entire listing for search terms and match the search query with that. So we think that will improve the accuracy and comprehensiveness of search recall.��John Donahoe

Have you ever before heard of an idea as absurd as this? This is obviously another cretinous idea picked up by the headless turkey Donahoe on one of his many trips with Alice down the rabbit hole.

The fact is the eBay marketplace is still going nowhere; it lags behind ecommerce in general and has been effectively �dead in the water� since John Donahoe started his �destructive renovations� in 2007. The only real organic growth has been from PayPal, and so eBay is now all about �PayPal Payments��unfortunately, behind that new mask, it�s still the same old, clunky, unscrupulous, regulation-ignoring, fraud-enabling, �merchant of sorts�, PreyPal. That the retail banks / Visa (V.me) / MasterCard will soon enough garrotte this clunky operator in the off-eBay space, I have absolutely no doubt.

�When Do We Start Calling eBay A Payments Company?�

http://forums.auctionbytes.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=24590

And, just for a laugh then, some comment on PayPal�s off-eBay products: "The New Way To Pay In-Store" (at Home Depot), PayPal Here, SmartPay, PayPal Digital Wallet, PayPal Debit MasterCard, PayPal Local and Watch With eBay ...

http://forums.auctionbytes.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=24611

But don�t take my word for it, see �How PayPal Works�, the full clunky story, at

http://money.howstuffworks.com/paypal7.htm

eBay / PayPal / Donahoe: Dead Men Walking

7.5.2012 20:52 #6

Blessedon

Ebay is still the Wild West for rookies, and therefore a dangerous place, with a gigantic learning curve to avoid deceit, predators, and outright fraud-buying and selling.
The badly flawed search engine and it's antique cookies are a huge problem, but that Ebay prioritizes it over dealing with the ruffians trolling for suckers shows a respect only for profits and a gross disrespect for consumers.
Donahoe could easily remedy the predation by requiring an escrow from new members, refundable after a certain feedback level and tenure. That might crush traffic for years but result in an estimable business model. It makes everyone earn respect, and have skin in the game.

Most people can't or won't pursue transgressors. But I am blessed as a LEO with the tenacity, resources, and experience to force capitulation from them. Currently, the incredulous winner of a $7 item wants to pay now that he is holding a summons. And he will pay; all costs, or his survivors will through the lien.
The point is: Donahoe's 8 figure salary and Stanford MBA don't make him a good businessman.

8.5.2012 07:10 #7

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