Starting on November 5, eBay will no longer allow the wildcard '*' search term

**reoddai** · 11-02-2012, 09:02 AM

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I mean, here's what eBay sent me:

Your saved searches will change on November 5

Dear xxx,

You're receiving this email because we noticed that you are using a wildcard (search terms with a *) in one or more of your saved searches in My eBay.
Starting on November 5, we will no longer support wildcard searches. We encourage you to revise your saved searches to whole words without the *.
Why are we making this change?
We've made many recent improvements to our search capabilities on eBay that now take into account many spelling variations. This has helped us to offer better search results to our buyers and sellers.
However, after November 5, your wildcard searches will not return the same results you're used to seeing. This means that you may possibly miss out on the new and recently-listed items that you're used to seeing in your saved searches in My eBay and in the emails that we send to you.
Here's how to revise your saved search terms
Replace any * in a wildcard search term with whole words.
EXAMPLE: Replace "Floral silk scar*" with "Floral silk scarf"
You can also include various spellings in a single search term by adding it in parentheses, with each additional term separated by a comma.
EXAMPLE: Replace "Floral silk scar*" with "Floral silk (scarf, scarfs, scarves)"
You can also exclude items from the results for your saved search by adding a "-(items to be excluded)".
EXAMPLE: Replace "Porcelain minifigur* -lot*" with " Porcelain (minifigure, minifigurines) -(lot, lots)"
Please update your saved searches today, so you can stay on top of the things you're most interested in finding on eBay.
Thanks for shopping on eBay!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have 90+ eBay searches and all of them use the wildcard.

Good bye:
(aut*,sig*,cut*)
(gam*,jer*,rel*)

Hello:
(autographs,autograph,auto,autos,sig,signature,sig ning,cut,sigs,signatures,signings,cuts)
(game,jersey,relic,gamejersey,gameused,relic,jerse ys,relics,gamejerseys,gameused)

If anyone has any other synonyms for these words that aren't above, please let me know.

**centrehice** · 11-02-2012, 10:09 AM

Thats a clear message that you should be collecting cards, not fabrics.

**piper1** · 11-02-2012, 06:13 PM

Why those d* b*.

**OPCfan** · 11-02-2012, 11:54 PM

Wow. I didn't know you could do that in the first place.

**petro1717** · 11-03-2012, 12:46 AM

Originally Posted by OPCfan

Wow. I didn't know you could do that in the first place.

+1

**Gallinator** · 11-03-2012, 03:43 AM

Luckily I only had a few searches that used the * but this change is a PITA in general, as now when I want to do ad hoc searches I'll have to do the (aa, ab, ac...) stuff as opposed to a* now. F***.

Plus, when I made the corrections and selected "replace existing search" it still shows the old syntax with the * but corrects it when the results come up. Typical eBay lack of attention to detail.

**MattDMC** · 11-03-2012, 03:57 AM

Originally Posted by OPCfan

Wow. I didn't know you could do that in the first place.

Originally Posted by petro1717

+1

+2

**Habitforming** · 11-03-2012, 11:29 AM

Originally Posted by MattDMC

+2

+3

**centrehice** · 11-03-2012, 12:17 PM

Why is everyone so upset?

Is everyone under the age of 30 living in an abbreviated world, and I'm just an outsider? Please tell me, I can take it.

**FuriousD82** · 11-03-2012, 04:17 PM

People are upset because they like to think their searches are thorough and they have put a lot of time into creating them. eBay is taking their guess work out and applying their own formulas to account for misspellings. The problem with their change is that Seller's mess ups go far beyond what their search system is likely capable of.