LighthouseKeepers.com

eBay controling our shearch engine

Posted By: DANIEL

eBay controling our shearch engine - 03/23/19 09:59 AM

Just in the last couple of weeks I noticed when I searched for Harbour lights, I get other brands. Yes it use to be a few would pop up because the seller use to tack on the name Harbour Lights to their un-popular brand to try and get the Harbour Light collectors to see them.

Now eBay has taken it on their selves to put the less popular, less collectible lighthouses manufactures, like Scaasis, Cheryl Spencer, Howell and no-names to appear when you search for Harbour Lights. I type in harbour lights because I want harbour lights. This is another example of where those in charge are making decisions for us.
Posted By: flacoastie

Re: eBay controling our shearch engine - 03/23/19 01:45 PM

It's the way of the world when you have personal in charge that like to do things the fast and easy way with the least amount of effort on their part.
Posted By: DANIEL

Re: eBay controling our shearch engine - 03/24/19 07:28 AM

Bing and google have been doing these for years. You type in the product you are looking for, then type in the city for the search. Then low and behold you will get first all the big box stores first that are not even in that city. you will also get merchants that are not even in the same state that you have to mail order. sometimes the little stores wont even come up.
Posted By: The Cape Cod Store.com

Re: eBay controling our shearch engine - 04/03/19 11:16 AM

The first things that appear when you do a search are the paid ads. Depending on the keyword(s) that you are using, it will dictate how many ads appear at the top and bottom of each search result. These ads are based on what is called a "click rate", (or how much each advertiser is willing to pay each time someone clicks onto their ad), in which bids are placed by the advertiser and the one who bids the most is listed first, second most is listed next, etc. After those ads come the "organic" results, or unpaid lists. Again, depending on the keyword(s) that you type in, that will affect the search results. The big stores will come up first because they are the ones that get the most traffic, mainly because they are spending huge dollars in advertising and also on "experts" who spend all day following what is called algorithms, or the constantly changing methods of how search engines determine how they list websites in their organic results. Small "independent" websites are at a vast disadvantage on the organic lists as we are unable to spend the large sums needed to keep up to the ever changing factors of website development in order to keep up with the Amazons and Walmarts of the world.
Posted By: RMau

Re: eBay controling our shearch engine - 04/05/19 02:24 PM

I just searched ebay for "Harbour Lights", including the quotes. I didn't look at all 10-ish pages of results, but the first two pages, with 50 results per page, were all legitimate Harbour Lights related entries.

Give that a try.

Rick
Posted By: flacoastie

Re: eBay controling our shearch engine - 04/05/19 05:26 PM

Rick - I just looked at 100 items (first 2 pages (100 items) of Harbour Lights) and found 9 items that are not Harbour Lights. They includes beer steins, lighthouse pictures and replicas from 3 different companies.

By my old math that equates to approximately 10% of the items not being Harbour Lights.
Posted By: DANIEL

Re: eBay controling our shearch engine - 04/06/19 10:13 AM

Wow
I actually did a post that has five responses including myself. That's more than I get with posting "The top ten of eBay" and that usually takes me 4 to 8 hours to put together depending on how much research I do.
Posted By: Dave H

Re: eBay controling our shearch engine - 04/07/19 08:22 PM

Perhaps, Daniel, but I am willing to bet that a lot of collectors read your top ten posts and learn from your thoughts and insight. They may not respond, but you have helped them with their collections through your efforts.
Posted By: The Cape Cod Store.com

Re: eBay controling our shearch engine - 04/09/19 01:32 PM

Originally Posted By Dave H
Perhaps, Daniel, but I am willing to bet that a lot of collectors read your top ten posts and learn from your thoughts and insight. They may not respond, but you have helped them with their collections through your efforts.


Yes, absolutely. I can attest to that as fact from comments I have received in the past from some customers.
Posted By: DANIEL

Re: eBay controling our shearch engine - 04/09/19 08:41 PM

That's nice to hear.
The reason I don't do any top ten on eBay right now is that it is almost all Fresnel lens. Out of the top twenty Harbour Lights sold on eBay there are 15 Lens.
All of them went for between $150 and %215 Boring!!!!!

I am working on Harbour Lights collectable tiers. I go through all the groups of HL to collect and list the key pieces. I started it months ago but just hasn't found any interest to finish it. I will try to get back to it.
Posted By: flacoastie

Re: eBay controling our shearch engine - 04/11/19 08:56 AM

Anything that you post is extremely interesting to read and most collectors seem to be shy about commenting on the posts that others make. I for one read all posts hoping to gather additional information for my files.
Posted By: DANIEL

Re: eBay controling our shearch engine - 04/13/19 06:30 AM

Here is the latest on my "Harbour Light" search:

"Vintage Holland Mold Ceramic Christmas Tree 11.5" Green with Lights"

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Holland...dEAAOSwjBhcBe58

I am assuming just because the word "lights" was in the title I end up with a Christmas tree for my Harbour Lights search.
Posted By: Dave H

Re: eBay controling our shearch engine - 04/13/19 06:51 PM

Artificial intelligence and search engines don't always work the way they should. Sometimes the search engine will turn up anything that has the word you are looking for. Often helps to enclose your search in quotes (such as "Harbour Lights") which generally tells it to search for those specific words.
Posted By: DANIEL

Re: eBay controling our shearch engine - 04/13/19 07:20 PM

That worked great I got rid of the Christmas tree in my "Harbour light" search.
Posted By: The Cape Cod Store.com

Re: eBay controling our shearch engine - 04/19/19 04:24 PM

Originally Posted By Dave H
Artificial intelligence and search engines don't always work the way they should.


The same can be said about human intelligence as well!
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