Recently eBay released a new "Advanced Search" screen to the world. We talked to the eBay search expert at TimeBLASTER, Dr. Search, to find out what these changes really mean.

Ina: You told me that eBay changed its "Words to exclude" field. Can you explain what the changes were?

Dr. Search: eBay enlarged the "Words to exclude" field. The new field has two lines and you can scroll up and down by clicking on the arrow buttons.

Ina: Is this good for eBay shoppers?

Dr. Search: This allows searchers to use more exclusion words in their searches, so this is a very good change. eBay allows searchers to enter approximately 250 characters into this field, depending on other options selected on the search form. The Search field is still limited to 100 characters, but the exclusion words don't appear to count against this limit.

Ina: It seems eBay was listening, because you have pointed out the need to increase the maximum search size in your Dr. Search Newsletters.

Dr. Search: Yes, and I applaud this important enhancement by eBay. I still call on eBay to open search size up to 512 characters and support use of phrases, as well as words, as exclusions. Likewise I call on eBay to allow both words and phrases in the keyword field.

Ina: What other changes did eBay make to the new search screen?

Dr. Search: eBay has added the Currency field that was in the International Search. The International Search has been eliminated and its functions taken over by the Advanced Search screen. Some other very important changes appear in the lower right quadrant of this new screen. There is a "Location / International" area with two groups of fields separated by an "OR". The section below the "OR" has a check box labeled "Search English language sites", defaulted to "on". Presumably this refers to the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, etc. This selection is OR'd with the default above - "Available to the country selected".

The default search configuration will provide you with all items meeting your search terms that are listed on English language sites or available to the (default) United States.

Here's the interesting part - if you deselect the "Search English language sites" you SEARCH ONLY THE U.S. SITE.

Ina: So I can stick with the default search settings and get items listed on English-language sites and items that are available to the U.S.? My only other choice is to limit searches to a single specific site?

Dr. Search: Yes, that's right.

Ina: How would collectors find items from every country with one search?

Dr. Search: They can't do it in one search. The only way now to "search the world" is to search every country, one country at a time.

Ina: *I did a review of timeBLASTER software in December and discovered that it allows you to do more sophisticated searches than eBay's own search interface. Can eBay members use timeBLASTER's software to get around this new problem?*

Dr. Search: Absolutely. If you are using timeBLASTER, you can set up searches to find items with whatever geographic criteria you wish. I'm available to help timeBLASTER customers if they want assistance in setting up searches with our software. We allow users to save an unlimited number of searches, and set up photo albums of the results.

------

If you want to keep up with eBay search features and learn great search tips, sign up for the Dr. Search newsletter at http://www.timeblaster.com. (It's free to everyone.)