Isabella's Guide to Searching

[isabelladangelo]

This guide is mainly in reference to online auctions but can be used on search engines as well.

I've seen and heard of many people who ask "How the heck did you find that? Whenever I search, I never find anything like that" Most of the time, in my case, it's in association with fabric or accessories I find online. Despite the large (volumes!) amount of fabric I have, I rarely spend more than a few dollars a yard on any of it. It's not that I have some magically powers that enable me to find great pieces at very low prices, it's all how you conduct your searches.

The very first thing to do before you search for anything is to think what exactly are you looking for. What object do you need? What is it that you want to buy? In that vain, think of the dimensions of the object; the color of the object; is it something you should buy locally (aka, is it heavy) or is it something that can be easily shipped? You need to visualize the object you want so badly.

An example: Let's say you want to buy a hat. Well, what kind of hat? There are thousands (if not millions) of styles of hats. What color should this hat be? What material do you want the hat made out of (aka, do you want a straw hat or do you want a cotton knit hat or a velvet hat?) Should the hat be vintage, a reproduction from a certain era, or a new one that you saw a few days ago at the store? Does the hat you want have a certain name associated with it like "Baseball cap" or "Cavalier hat"?

Once you have answered those types of questions, you can start your search. Since Ebay is a format most people are familiar with, I'll use that as an example. This can be used on ANY online auction (or search engine really) but for simplicities sake, let's use Ebay.

On Ebay, the search box is in the upper right hand corner. They also have a search button and, below the search box is a link that says "Advance Search". You really only need the advance search if you are looking at objects locally. There should also be a small check box below the search box/bar that says "Search title and description". I will tell you this right now, I almost ALWAYS check that. If you get too many results, you can always uncheck it later.

In the search box, you want to put in your keywords. What are your keywords? They are the "must haves" for the object you are looking for. If you are looking for a 16th c tall hat, you might put in "Elizabethan Tall Hat" and hit enter. Always make sure you have the search title and description box checked.

If you don't find anything the first time you search DO NOT PANIC OR GIVE UP. Different people call objects different things. Also, there are a lot of people that don't really know what they have and what to call it. So let's say you didn't find anything for an Elizabethan Tall Hat. That's fine. Think of how to describe an Elizabethan tall hat to someone who has never, ever seen one. You might use words like "brim, hat, feather, velvet OR wool". Try searching using those terms. You may not find exactly what you are looking for every single time, but you will find something that may lead you to finding your object.

What if you want something that can be plural or you search and you find a bunch of things you do NOT want to show up in your search? Let's say you wanted to find a vintage strawberry embroidered apron. Well, the problem is that you keep getting Strawberry Shortcake objects mixed in with the stuff you really want to see! So, how to go about this problem? The boolean search! Boolean is, at it's very basic nature, the ability to use wildcards and symbols to help you in your searches. Let's start with "Strawberry". Well, it could be strawberry or strawberries. Embroidered could be embroidery. So, rather than typing a billion combinations of the words, you can narrow is down using the * (shift + 8). What does the * do? If you type in Strawberr* into your search bar, the search engine will know to look for anything begining with STRAWBERR. This will include Strawberries, strawberry, strawberry's, ect. You can do the same with embroid*. All the search engine needs to know, typically, is two letters or numbers before the *. This will work on most major search engines.

Okay, so you have the plurals/endings problem solved but what about all those things you don't want? Well, if you see many similar items that you don't want (in this case, all things dealing with strawberry shortcake) you can simply ask the search engine not to include them with the - sign. On ebay, there are two ways to do this. On google, there is only one way. My way (one of the two ways acceptable on ebay) is to say -(shortcake, cartoon, animation) to get rid of all the strawberry shortcake objects. Anything inside the () after the - is considered a term NOT to search. The search engine rejects the objects that have those keywords in the title and description (assuming you still have that box checked).

The other way is just to take each keyword you don't want to see and put the - in front of it so it would be -shortcake, -cartoon, -animation. This is acceptable on almost all major search engines. The -() isn't but I find it easier on ebay to use the () so I can quickly add (aka cut and paste) more terms if I need too. Either way is fine. Either way works on Ebay and/or Bidville.

Now let's say you want an object but you don't want to pay more than a certain amount for it. If you click on the advanced search link (it's typically right around the "search" button somewhere) you will see a LOT more options. Don't freak out. I'll guide you through the Ebay advanced search options. Right now, we are focused on getting a good deal.

Scroll down just a bit if you need too and you should see something like this:

Items Priced

Min: US $ Max: US $

If you aren't in the US, you'll see your own national currency there. Put in the min amount you want to spend (I typically put in 0) and then the max you are willing to spend. If you are not sure of the max you are willing to spend there is another option.

You can do a normal search with all your keywords. When the items come up, in the middle of the right hand side of the page is a pull down menu that defaults to "Sort by: Time ending soonest" Click on that little tiny down arrow and press "Price: lowest to highest" or "Price: Highest to lowest". The difference between the two is if you want to see the cheapest items first or the most expensive ones first. That's all. The items will all still be there they just won't be sorted in terms of time anymore. I tend to use this option a lot if I'm searching for fabric.

Most of the other advanced search options are pretty self explanatory (I hope!). The "from favorite sellers" button is very useful if you have a large list of favorite sellers that you buy from a lot. (Mine all deal in trim. :-) ) It means that the search engine will ONLY search from the list of sellers you have designated as your favorites and NO ONE ELSE. This is pretty useful if you remember one of your favorite sellers having an item but you can't remember which one. It helps to narrow down the search field a lot.

I find myself using the "Items near me:" field a lot. You can use the pull down menu to make the search only within a certain radius from your zip code or the name of your city (or any city really). This is very useful for heavy objects that can't be shipped or you don't mind picking up rather than having shipped (like furniture).


Hopefully, this will help some people in finding objects they want on Ebay and also to get better search results. Feel free to ask questions!

Comments

[tattycat.livejournal.com]

Also re: finding things on eBay, try searching for descriptions that people would use even if you know they're not right. As costume_snark can attest, and awful lot of stuff gets labelled "SCA/RENAISSANCE/VICTORIAN/CIVIL WAR/PROM DRESS."

[isabelladangelo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but would you want any of those SCA/LARP/Victorian/Steampunk outfits? :-)

Okay, in fairness, I have seen a couple that were just randomly titled but were decent outfits. So, yeah, it might be a good idea to use the commonly misspelled, mislabeled keywords as well.