question

grow-guru_com avatar image
0 Likes"
grow-guru_com asked

Huge difference between the finding API and manual search?

Hi,

we're trying to build a tool which is supposed to monitor the rankings of our ebay offers for a given keyword using the finding API.

But after little testing we found huge differences between the results of the manual search on the website and the results of the finding API. In fact both result sets are hardly comparable. Both the amount of results and the positions within are different.

There are a few older topics in this forum regarding this topic but I found no solution so far.

Is it possible to retrieve the same results as the manual search through some API call? We were hoping that we don't have to rely on web scraping :(

Thanks

finding apisearchsearch-apifindingapifindingservice
10 |600 characters needed characters left characters exceeded
Toggle Comment visibility. Current Visibility: Viewable by all users

Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

2 Answers

· Write an Answer
helios825 avatar image
1 Like"
helios825 answered

I don't think there's an API-based solution to your issue. Remember, eBay search results on the website vary between users, probably based on various factors like: search history, browse history, buy history, browser UA/languages, geo location, etc. If you wrote a bot to scrape eBay SERPs, it would likely differ from what you see in your browser.

10 |600 characters needed characters left characters exceeded
Toggle Comment visibility. Current Visibility: Viewable by all users

Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

clickimusprime avatar image
1 Like"
clickimusprime answered

For BestMatch, a specific point in time you probably can't for the reasons helios825 mentioned.

Other search sorts should rank similarly.

Over time, you might be able to use the hit count from the Shopping API GSI/GMI calls as a proxy for actual click thru performance as opposed to display rank. Hit count / the age of the listing gives an avg daily views stat.

If you have a store, Terapeak data on the Research Tab of the Seller Hub can give you some insights. eBay doesn't really make comparative analysis easy. They've always had a primary focus on price competition and driving down prices.

The Marketplace API provides sales data too, but you may have trouble getting access to it.


10 |600 characters needed characters left characters exceeded
Toggle Comment visibility. Current Visibility: Viewable by all users

Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

Write an Answer

Hint: Notify or tag a user in this post by typing @username.

Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.