eBay Search Syntax

Search Commands

Search commands are ways of narrowing your search to get more specific results.

Note:
eBay searches are not case-sensitive, so whether or not you use capital letters, your results will be the same.

Your goal: You're looking for items where two or more keywords are all present.
Command: Just enter the keywords with a space between them.
Example search: Wedgwood cups blue
Returns: Items with all three words in the title in any order

Your goal: You're looking for items containing certain words in a particular order.
Command: Place quotation marks around the group of words.
Example search: "Gone With the Wind"
Returns: Items with titles containing Gone With the Wind, but not those just containing wind, gone or Gone With Wind

Your goal: You're looking for items that don't contain a certain word.
Command: Place a minus sign immediately before the word to be excluded (no space).
Example search: bib overalls -baby
Returns: Items with titles containing the words bib and overalls but not containing the word baby

Your goal: You're looking for items that don't contain several words.
Command: Place a minus sign before the list of words separated by commas (with no spaces) and put in parentheses.
Example search: Wedgwood -(black,green,purple)
Returns: Items with titles containing the word Wedgwood but not containing black, green or purple.

Your goal: You're looking for items where one word or another is present.
Command: Enter keywords in parentheses separated by commas. (No space after the commas.)
Example search: (Wedgwood,Lenox)
Returns: Items whose titles contain either the word Wedgwood or Lenox

Your goal: You're looking for items that contain words starting with a particular sequence of letters.
Command: Enter the letter sequence followed by an asterisk.
Example search: chin* buddh*
Returns: Items whose titles contain words starting with "Chin," such as China, Chinese, Chinois, Chinook, and chintz, as well as words starting with "Buddh," including Buddha, Buddhas, Buddhist, Buddhism.

Your goal: You're looking for items containing a particular word in addition to an advanced search command.
Command: Use the plus sign (+) before the required word.
Example search: (Wedgwood,Lenox) +cup
Returns: Items whose titles contain cup and either Wedgwood or Lenox.

Your Goal: In some cases, eBay will expand your search to include a plural and/or an alternate spelling of your search word(s). For example, if you were searching for book, you would receive search results with items containing the keyword book or the keyword books. Searching for grey would bring back items containing the keyword grey or the keyword gray. If you want to only search for a specific spelling of a word, simply enter the keyword or phrase in quotes. For example, if you enter "book", your results would include only items with the exact word book and not items with the word books or other alternatives.
Command: Enter the keywords or phrases in quotes.
Example search: "book"
Returns: Only items with the exact word book and not items with the word books.

Your Goal: In some cases, eBay will automatically expand your search to include items based on the intent of your search rather than matching the exact keywords provided. Users do not have to do anything for this functionality to work, as this will only occur automatically in cases of high confidence. If you do not want eBay to do this, then all you need to do is to put quotation marks around one of your keywords, and eBay will match your search keywords exactly without search intelligence. For example, if you were searching for tickets to a rock concert by the artist Madonna, you might type in the keywords MADONNA TICKETS. This may bring back items that have both keywords MADONNA and TICKETS, as well as items that have the keyword MADONNA and are in the Event Tickets category. This should bring back more relevant items of interest to users. To opt out of this functionality, you can enter "MADONNA" TICKETS and your results would include only items with the exact keywords MADONNA TICKETS and not the additional items in the Event Tickets category with only the keyword MADONNA.
Opt Out Command: Enter quotes around any single keyword.
Example search: "Madonna" Tickets
Returns: Only items with the exact word MADONNA and TICKETS.

Why not search and try these commands now?

From here.