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Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Tips and Tricks for Using eBay Search.

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If you know what you're doing, you can quickly find what you're looking for on eBay. Here are a few golden rules.





Be specific: If you're searching for the first edition of the original Harry Potter book, you'll get further searching for 'harry potter rowling philosopher's stone first edition' than you will searching for 'harry potter'. You'll get fewer results, but the ones you do get will be far more relevant.





Spell wrongly: It's a sad fact that many of the sellers on eBay just can't spell. Whatever you're looking for, try thinking of a few common misspellings - the chances are that fewer people will find these items, and so they will be cheaper.





Get a thesaurus: You should try to search for all the different words that someone might use to describe your item, for example searching for both 'TV' and 'television', or for 'phone', 'mobile' and 'cellphone'. Where you can, though, leave off the type of item altogether and search by things like brand and model.





Use the categories: Whenever you search, you'll notice a list of categories at the side of your search results. If you just searched for the name of a CD because you want to buy that CD, you should click the 'CDs' category to just look at results in that category. Why bother looking through a load of results that you don't care about?





Don't be afraid to browse: Once you've found the category that items you like seem to be in, why not click 'Browse' and take a look through the whole category? You might be surprised by what you find.





Few people realise just how powerful eBay's search engine is - a few symbols here and there and it'll work wonders for you.





Wildcard searches: You can put an asterisk (*) into a search phrase when you want to say 'anything can go here'. For example, if you wanted to search for a 1950s car, you could search for 'car 195*'. 195* will show results from any year in the 1950s.





In this order: If you put words in quotes ("") then the only results shown will be ones that have all of the words between the quote marks. For example, searching for "Lord of the Rings" won't give you any results that say, for example "Lord Robert Rings".





Exclude words: Put a minus, and then put any words in brackets that you don't want to appear in your search results. For example: "Pulp Fiction" -(poster,photo) will find items related to Pulp Fiction but not posters or photos.





Either/or: If you want to search for lots of words at once, just put them in brackets: the TV example from earlier could become '(TV,television)', which would find items with either word.





So once you've found your bargain item, bid for it and won it, what if it all goes wrong? Don't worry - eBay has a thorough dispute resolution procedure, and we'll cover it in some depth in the next article, so you'll be prepared if the worst happens.


Monday, October 1, 2012

Taming the eBay Search Engine.

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If you know what you're doing, you can quickly find what you're looking for on eBay - and the more you know about how buyers find you, the easier you'll find it to be found. Here are a few golden searching rules.





Be specific: If you're searching for the first edition of the original Harry Potter book, you'll get further searching for 'harry potter rowling philosopher's stone first edition' than you will searching for 'harry potter'. You'll get fewer results, but the ones you do get will be far more relevant.





Spell wrongly: It's a sad fact that many of the sellers on eBay just can't spell. Whatever you're looking for, try thinking of a few common misspellings - you might find a few items here that have slipped through the cracks.





Get a thesaurus: You should try to search for all the different words that someone might use to describe an item, for example searching for both 'TV' and 'television', or for 'phone', 'mobile' and 'cellphone'. Where you can, though, leave off the type of item altogether and search by things like brand and model.





Use the categories: Whenever you search, you'll notice a list of categories at the side of your search results. If you just searched for the name of a CD, you should click the 'CDs' category to look at results in that category only. Why bother looking through a load of results that you don't care about?





Don't be afraid to browse: Once you've found the category that items you like seem to be in, why not click 'Browse' and take a look through the whole category? You might be surprised by what you find.





Few people realise just how powerful eBay's search engine is - a few symbols here and there and it'll work wonders for you.





Wildcard searches: You can put an asterisk (*) into a search phrase when you want to say 'anything can go here'. For example, if you wanted to search for a 1950s car, you could search for 'car 195*'. 195* will show results from any year in the 1950s.





In this order: If you put words in quotes ("") then the only results shown will be ones that have all of the words between the quote marks. For example, searching for "Lord of the Rings" won't give you any results that say, for example "Lord Robert Rings".





Exclude words: Put a minus, and then put any words in brackets that you don't want to appear in your search results. For example: "Pulp Fiction" -(poster,photo) will find items related to Pulp Fiction but not posters or photos.





Either/or: If you want to search for lots of words at once, just put them in brackets: the TV example from earlier could become '(TV,television)', which would find items with either word.





Don't get too tied up learning the ways of the search engine, though: a surprising number of eBay users don't search at all, preferring to look through eBay's category system and save their favourites in their browser. The next email will show you how to make sure these people can find you too.


Tuesday, September 25, 2012

The Advantages of Adsense For Search

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Adsense for search provides publishers with the opportunity to provide a search tool through their website. The search tool provides results which contain adwords adverts, and therefore publishers can generate revenues.





The effectiveness of this tool for publishers comes in its functionality for website visitors. Those who have browsed resources on a website may return to Google to complete a search. If this resource is contained within a website they are currently on, then they are likely to use the publisher’s website for search, and therefore the publisher can receive returns.





Publishers often claim that having a search tool within their website is a good way to generate Adsense revenues without the concern of diminishing their brand. In the way that a company who sells a product would not want a rival provider having an adsense advert within their website, they will not feel that this disadvantage is relevant. The advantages of adsense for search also lies in the space that it occupies on screen. The results are displayed on a separate page, so publishers do not feel that they are sacrificing space where Adsense would previously appear.





The tool may also lead to visitors selecting the given website as their homepage. If the website contains relevant resources, and still has the functionality associated with Google then the website has broader general appeal. Those who are visiting the website for the first time, and realising it will not satisfy their needs may still use the websites search function.





Adsense publishers often state that they receive less per Click Through with Search. Although this is the case surfers are more likely to be targeted towards adverts than with Google Adsense. If a visitor has have changed the item or topic they wish to search for, and isn’t compelled by the adverts; they can still find what they are looking for as the publisher earns a percentage.





It is also a good tool as publishers can allow their site to be searched using the same technology. Therefore surfers are more likely to also find the resources within the publisher’s website that they require.





Google has a lesser database of advertisers for Adsense through the selectiveness of advertisers. The search toolbar provides results which include advertisers that do not want to appear in Adsense for content.





Google for search is also used by large market leading websites where this is rare with adsense. Companies who provide a service or sell a product are more regularly opting to incorporate the search toolbar into their website whilst not feeling that it depreciates their brand.





In fact; many businesses actually feel as though their brand is strengthened through it’s alignment with the Google logo. Other’s who choose not to use the Google logo, may benefit from the customers assumption that the search technology used belongs to the website they are on, and therefore further benefits are reaped by the publisher.





As adsense is plagued with click fraud, the same is less likely to happen with search. Click Fraud would require the person or persons committing the crime to follow realistic searches, and to avoid any suspicious behaviour. This could be particularly hard, and with less revenue per click those committing click fraud are likely to stay away from search all together.





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