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Years ago, when you would search Datsun 510 on eBay, it would return hits for Datsun 510 stuff.  (imagine!) 

I remember thinking it was pretty cool when the search would return five hundred and ten items.  Most of the items by far were new and used items offered by private sellers.

 

Once companies started to use eBay as storefronts, the number of items returned in a search ballooned to thousands and it started to become difficult to find cool stuff in between all the generic over the counter items you could get at the local autoparts store. 

 

Then my buddy Jeff informed me that if you search for Datsun (510) that problem would disappear.  Sure enough, back to years of searching with maybe 2-3 new pages of real (mostly) Datsun 510 parts added per day.

 

More recently Hotwheels have taken over and now account for nearly 1/2 the search results.  I can deal with that as I actually buy them on occasion since I have given up trying to find them in stores.  But I digress...

 

About 2 months ago, eBay changed something and searching for Datsun (510) no longer eliminated all the garbage.  Search results would return 50,000+ items, most of them individual listings for spark plugs, fan belts, bearing seals, etc - many of them not even for a 510.  *sigh*

 

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=datsun+%28510%29&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_sop=10&_osacat=0&_odkw=%28datsun+510%29&LH_TitleDesc=0

 

Well, I found out this morning that if you reformat the search to (Datsun 510) it behaves as before and all the garbage listings (over 90% of the total) are not returned.  Now I'm back to actual Datsun 510 parts - and hotwheels.

 

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=%28datsun+510%29&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_sop=10&_osacat=0&_odkw=%28datsun+510%29&LH_TitleDesc=0

 

I hope that's helpful news to someone.

 

Any tricks you want to share?

 

--carter

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Well, I found out this morning that if you reformat the search to (Datsun 510) it behaves as before and all the garbage listings (over 90% of the total) are not returned.  Now I'm back to actual Datsun 510 parts - and hotwheels.

 

 

I hope that's helpful news to someone.

 

That is pretty cool. Wonder why that works?

 

I had given up and stopped looking for stuff because typing in Datsun 1200 gives you 17,302 hits (as of now). But now typing (datsun 1200) gives you 994. Kooky...

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If you enclose in quotes or parentheses it will make it sobthe search must contain an exact match in the title of whatever is enclosed. Also you can negate words using something like this

 

"Datsun 510" -hotwheels

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If you enclose in quotes or parentheses it will make it so the search must contain an exact match in the title of whatever is enclosed. 

 

Handy to know. I like how on craigslist (and I swear ebay back in the day?) there's a button to click that only shows results with your keywords in the title. 

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