Shopping web site search engines: you'd think they would be so good by now....

M

motley

Full time employment: Posting here.
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...and yet in my experience they suck on pretty much every site I've tried. For example, I'll search on "sneakers" and instead of just getting sneakers, I'll get other types of shoes in the results, shoe laces, etc etc. Sometimes I'll get results included which aren't even close, like searching sneakers and pants or polo shirts appear. ?? If the angle is "well since you're shopping that we thought that maybe..." You thought wrong. Just give me what I asked for. At the very least give me an option to check that is something like "Show me ONLY sneakers, not what the site thinks is 'sneaker related.' "
 
motley said:
...and yet in my experience they suck on pretty much every site I've tried. For example, I'll search on "sneakers" and instead of just getting sneakers, I'll get other types of shoes in the results, shoe laces, etc etc. Sometimes I'll get results included which aren't even close, like searching sneakers and pants or polo shirts appear. ?? If the angle is "well since you're shopping that we thought that maybe..." You thought wrong. Just give me what I asked for. At the very least give me an option to check that is something like "Show me ONLY sneakers, not what the site thinks is 'sneaker related.' "
Click to expand...
Welcome to the internet, the place to be smeared with nonsense advertising.
 
I'm not talking about advertising though; it's using their search engine to shop for things. I don't get why they don't get that if anything, such incompetence is going to give shoppers cause to go elsewhere.
 
Try other search terms. Like shoes for example. Sport shoes, athletic, tennis, golf. Engineers boots. OK those would not be sneakers. Capiche? :cool:
 
Are you using the dedicated Shopping tab on Chrome, for example? This is pretty good in my experience.

Are you typing in "buy sneakers"?

What are your search terms?
 
Google hasn't been the same since they redesigned their once classic search results page. I moved on to other search engines since, none of which as are good as years ago.
 
I do think it is mostly due to advertising but I generally agree the search results have not improved. They are amazing at auto completion but very weak on sorting and filtering.
 
MC Rider said:
Try other search terms. Like shoes for example. Sport shoes, athletic, tennis, golf. Engineers boots. OK those would not be sneakers. Capiche? :cool:
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"Athletic shoes" or "tennis shoes" are pretty much synonyms for "sneakers" so will generally give the same results. Golf shoes are not sneakers.

PS again the topic is search engines within shopping web sites (ebay etc), not things like Google. And I'm not saying it's all sites or all the time, but it's not exactly rare at least in my experience. IIRC ebay was one of the worst and some of the cheaper sites.
 
motley said:
...and yet in my experience they suck on pretty much every site I've tried. For example, I'll search on "sneakers" and instead of just getting sneakers, I'll get other types of shoes in the results, shoe laces, etc etc. Sometimes I'll get results included which aren't even close, like searching sneakers and pants or polo shirts appear. ?? If the angle is "well since you're shopping that we thought that maybe..." You thought wrong. Just give me what I asked for. At the very least give me an option to check that is something like "Show me ONLY sneakers, not what the site thinks is 'sneaker related.' "
Click to expand...
Try ChatGTP. It allows you to stipulate just those conditions for your search
 
I notice that the "sponsored" web sites come up first (or only.)
 
I used to work in eCommerce, and did some time on clothing sites. "Search and sort" was the hardest thing.

Sometimes we had to pick matches from keywords, sometimes from the description. Some parts of the business wanted a targeted search, some wanted everything (related words). That's probably what you are getting.

And how to sort them was anybody's guess.

Man, I don't miss that.
 
motley said:
.... PS again the topic is search engines within shopping web sites (ebay etc), not things like Google. ....
Click to expand...
I got that the first time, but you are still getting generic "search engine" responses. Let me help...

motley said:
... PS again the topic is search engines within shopping web sites (ebay etc),

not things like Google. ....
Click to expand...
:)

And I agree, some are better than others, but many are just awful. Maybe I'll dig up examples later.
 
Often they are selling search engines, not shopping engines.
MC Rider said:
Duckduckgo dot com for your search.
Click to expand...
+1

I’ve been using it for years. Occasionally, I use Google or Bing if I’m not getting the results I need.

I know of no good shopping search that is trust worthy.
 
I troll Facebook Marketplace a lot looking for items to buy and resell. Their search function is horrible. I have it set to filter listings to within 15 miles of my location. I just opened that search. The first 10 results, in order of appearance, are 58 miles, 19, 130, 28, 110, 12, 270, 140, 78, and 17. Only 1 of 10 is within the 15 miles radius I set as my search parameter. What's the point of even having filters if they don't actually filter anything?
 
I side with the folks here who see this as advertising. Shopping sites and search engines make gobs of money from ads, the top 3 being FB, Google and Amazon. The better the targeting the more money they make, so it is in their interest to target well.

Looking at the OP example, I would bet a fair number of people searching for “sneakers” end up buying other kinds of shoes and laces.
 
If their interest is to target well, in the cases I mention, they're failing. If I search on "sneakers," obviously I'm looking for sneakers. Not slippers, not docksiders, not shoe laces. If I was looking for those other things, I'd have entered that in the search bar/filter.
 
As much as I like the ease of online shopping, I agree with the difficulty of finding exactly what you are looking for, without getting everything else.
Target, Amazon, etc gives you all kinds of other options when you type in something specific.
Like another poster said, it can be a rabbit hole.
Sometimes I prefer to go back to the store and walk to the specific area to get what I want.
 
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