Never Use Negative Best Match Keywords

Right now on eBay there are 4,707 auctions with the term “never used” in their listing title. There are 1,603 listings with the term “never opened.” There are 2,276 auctions with “never worn” in the title.

This is bad news for the seller who wants to rank high in the Best Match search results for items that are new. Why? Because as I explain in my free eBook Best Match Made Simple keywords you include in the listing title can have a positive or negative impact on your auction’s rankings in the search results. This determination is based on bidders’ past history for listings with those words for a particular search query.

If listings with words in the title like mint or New in Box (NIB) tend to get clicked on, added to watch lists, bid upon, or purchased for a particular search query, they will help auctions that include those words rank higher in the Best Match search results.

Conversely, if keywords like used, opened or worn tend to be avoided by bidders who are searching for new items, these words will have a negative impact on auction listings that include them - regardless if they are preceeded by the word never.

Here’s an extreme example. Use the BayEstimator to analyse the effects of the listing title underwear never worn against the search query underwear. Now use it with the title new underwear. That’s a 20% increase in my auction title’s Best Match relevance score. I also have 7 more characters in the title when I use the word new vice never used which affords me more room to include other valuable keywords such as mens, sexy, briefs, or boxer.

The moral of this story - never say never!

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