Path: ...!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: OT: Search tricks?
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2024 19:26:13 -0700
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On 8/23/2024 6:46 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Aug 2024 20:41:53 -0700, Don Y
> <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
> 
>> On 8/22/2024 7:33 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
>>>> My latest "escapade" is the result of Amazon botching an order;
>>>> canceling it the day it was to be delivered.  So, now to find
>>>> those same items elsewhere having already lost the days that
>>>> I could afford to lose WAITING for their arrival.  "Who has these
>>>> items TODAY, in town and IN STOCK?"
>>>
>>> Ok.  That means you know the maker and model of the item that you
>>> intend to buy.  In other words, you're not searching for a item to
>>> buy, but instead are searching for a vendor that has that item in
>>> stock.
>>
>> Yes.  I am "letting my fingers do the walking"...
> 
> Please re-read what I wrote.  I had assumed that you know the maker
> and model number of the item you want to purchase because you ordered
> something and Amazon allegedly botched your order.  However, the
> example you provided was essentially starting your search from
> scratch.  You had a maker (Leviton) and a part number.  Why didn't you
> just search for that?

Because I wanted (and had ordered) several different parts.  What they
all had in common was "leviton stainless steel two gang wall plate".
I was willing to see the "extra" hits ut only ONCE in that search as I
picked out the "4 port", "6 port", "8 port", "12 port", "dual receptacle",
"dual Decora" and "blank" variants.

I *gambled* that this would be faster than 7 different searches, especially
if the vendor didn't have exactly what I was looking for AND was likely to
provide lots of unmatching hits!

> When you searched for a "leviton two gang stainless steel wall plate",
> you didn't continue narrow the search by the type of outlet it fits
> (decorative switch, toggle switch, duplex wall outlet).  When I run
> your search for:
> <https://www.amazon.com/s?k=leviton+two+gang+stainless+steel+wall+plate>
> it shows 266 results (after I sorted by price low to high which tends
> to eliminate duplicates) at the upper right.  When I add the word
> "switch" to the above searches string, it's down to 194 results.  When
> I add "standard size switch", it produces 169 results.  If I then
> group these words with quotation marks as in:
> <https://www.amazon.com/s?k=leviton+%22two+gang%22+%22stainless+steel%22+%22wall+plate%22+%22standard+size+switch%22>
> It's down to 96 results.  Most of the 96 are advertised items that you
> don't want.  However, the first few match the criteria.  Look though
> those, pick one, and order it.

I am not interested in wall plates with "toggle" (switch) or (single)
receptacle (in any form or receptacle size).  Or, anything other than
two gang, stainless, leviton, etc.  But, if those "perforations" appear
in the stated search criteria, there will likely be one instance of each:
dual toggles, toggle plus receptacle, single receptacle, "round" receptacle,
etc.

> Or, go to the Leviton web page, and find the exact item you want to
> order.
> <https://store.leviton.com/collections/home-wall-plates>
> Then search Amazon for that exact number and order it.
> 
> The bad news is that Amazon has intentionally removed the "not"
> operator (a minus sign) from search.  I suspect this was to prevent
> users from removing "featured" items (items you don't want but for
> which Amazon gets paid to shove in your face).  I used to be able to
> trick Amazon search by using "advanced search" or by searching Amazon
> from Google Search, but both of those no longer work.  Sorry.
> 
> Ebay is somewhat better for searching because it has search operators:
> <https://www.ebay.com/sch/ebayadvsearch>
> 
> I'm out of time.  Good luck (again).

I've made another attempt at it.  But, will now have to rearrange my
work schedule as the window in which I expected to have those items
has closed (moved forward indefinitely).

My point has been that specifying more terms should NARROW the results
yet seems to have the opposite effect.

And, reducing the number of terms would ALSO have that effect:
"leviton", "wall plate", "stainless steel", "two gang", etc.