Can someone explain what ebays BEST MATCH is ?

[Mikey]

Perhaps me no longer riding on the buying merry-go-round has set me back, but what the hell is "Best Match" ?

I just noticed this today .......

I checked for the name "Mego" on my search ..... yes, Mego is in the title.

Then I notice, the last page of items running off is all jumbled up.

Example, the last item to run off shortly is listed on the second page, while an item that still has 5 hours to go is listed right on top.

I think this sucks and isn't fair ...

Yes, you do have the option of setting the auctions to run off properly, but you have to physically do that by hand --- and I believe most potenial buyers wont -- either out of laziness, or just not knowing it could be done.

Why did ebay do this ?

[megocrazy]

I'm guessing it must search using the most occurences of your search criteria in the auction listing. If you type mego a thousand times in the description, you would come up first for a search of "mego". That's a guess and kinda the way most internet search engines work, though they are also sometimes based on the frequency they are viewed as well. That's just a guess. I also find it annoying as it's always coming up as the initial default result, and I can't find a way of changing that setting. Once you set it to another criteria, it stays on that until you get out of the search mode. When you come back, it's back on "best match". I'm sure if you pay extra you can get to the top of this list as well. If not yet, sometime in ebay's future.

[Overkill]

I set mine to always show the newest listings. Every time I log into my account the settings stay on that so I really have no problem.