There was a discussion here regarding the use of “earring” and earrings” as tags. Both gave different results. kfarrel cleared the air here:
kfarrell says:
Ok guys, here’s the deal with earring vs earrings, and categories.It was brought up that the subcategory “earring” wasn’t bringing up items tagged as “earrings”. For the subcategories, you must have that *exact* tag for it to come up in the category browser.
But this is problematic, because our search can pluralize “earring” into “earrings”, but can’t go backwards. So if all your items are tagged “earring” it will not show up in a search for “earrings”, which is problematic since it seems much more natural to search for “earrings”.
In light of this, the subcategory was changed to “earrings”.
I apologize for any confusion over this, and any extra work it causes sellers. You can edit a listing’s tags without incurring any additional fees from Etsy, and if you come to Brooklyn I’ll share my secret Oatmeal Cookie stash with you as penance.
As for nuovovita’s observation about the number of items coming up in search results differing from the category browser, this is because the search is flexible and can pick up both a singular and plural words in one fell swoop, whereas the category browser is not.
So go ahead and tag with just “earrings” and use your other tags for something more exciting :)
Posted at 8:20 pm, September 27 2007 EST
September 29th, 2007 at 1:49 am
Kate, I’m not trying to say they are lazy or lack a work ethic.
It’s just unclear to me why really obvious things that *customers* ask for over and over again are not fixed. Theres issues that have been going on for months that I KNOW would take someone a day or two at the most to change. Sure, not search… but other things like changes to the listing pages, like ‘Sell Similar’, etc. are nowhere to be seen, with no apparent reason why not.
Sure, I guess they’re working on… something? Like the category changes that various Admins have said is their ‘priority’ since like, January… wow, the progress on that one is amazing…
September 28th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
I posted this in the other tagging thread here… which I’m too lazy to find and link to now…. but it’s the same problem with Treat and Treats. If I don’t type in Treats as a tag, my treats don’t show up in the treats sub-category. Super annoying.
September 28th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
The results pulled up by kw and by category link have always differed, with the “fuzzy logic” in place for the kw but not the category link. It’s not just for earring and earrings.
I wish they would just adopt something standard like plain ol’ Boolean which has been around a long time. Let me look for the link to the other thread I remember.
September 28th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
“I really don’t know what the heck their tech people do with their time….”
I’m pretty sure Haim LIVES in front of a computer, and it’s pretty similar for the rest of their tech crew either. They really are doing the best they can. I’ve met a lot of the tech people, and I don’t think it’s a work-ethic issue.
They do probably need more skilled workers and/or a project manager. There’s a shortage of them in the US — my partner works for a large design firm and many of their big clients are recruiting from Europe.
I Know, this does US, the users, no good when something’s broken. But it’s not a lack for work ethic.
September 28th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Basically, the search and categroy system is totally F—ed and it’s been obvious for a long time how inadequate this is.
The ‘bleed over’ ness of the sub categories is just plain stupid.
Etsy’s response time for fixing/improving site problems is pathetic.
I really don’t know what the heck their tech people do with their time….
Things like these search issues are just so awful, and they never change… and when they do change something, like the subcategories, it is hardly better than what came before! I don’t understand.
September 28th, 2007 at 10:58 am
is it not possible to have a search function similar to Entrez PubMed, the medical research database, which searches the title, abstract and author list using fuzzy logic and a recognised list of similes?
or is this too”off-the-shelf” for etsy?