How search, ads and recommendations work

Search results and recommendations

Listings are ranked mainly by how relevant they are to what you searched for or are looking at: the title, tags, category and attributes the seller gave them.

Listing quality also counts: reviews and ratings, how complete the listing is, and how shoppers interact with it. When you are signed in, your favourites and recent views can personalise recommendations.

Sellers cannot pay to change their place in regular (non-ad) search results or recommendations.

How recommendations work

Recommendations appear as rows across the site, such as “Similar items” at the top of a listing page, “Inspired by your interests”, “Shoppers also viewed” and “Often bought together”. Each row works in two phases: selection, then ranking.

Selection quickly gathers a small set of candidates: listings that shoppers viewed, added to their cart or bought together with the one you are looking at, listings with similar titles, tags, categories and photos, and, for a new listing, popular listings of the same category. Only listings available in your country are considered.

Ranking scores each candidate on how similar it is, its popularity (views and sales), its quality (ratings, reviews and the shop’s service) and how recent it is. When you allow personalisation, your interests and usual price range also count. The row is then varied so one shop doesn’t fill it, and new shops and shops with good service get a small boost.

The “Similar items” row can include a few ads from the auction described below. It then says “Including ads”, and each ad is marked “Ad”.

You shape your recommendations by clicking listings and by adding or removing favourites. If you don’t allow personalisation cookies, recommendations are based only on the listing you are viewing, not on your history.

Ads

Sellers looking to grow their business and reach more interested buyers can use our advertising platform, Shine Ads, to promote their items. Ads are always labelled “Ad”.

You’ll see ad results based on factors like relevancy, and the amount sellers pay per click. Each time an ad can be shown, an auction ranks the advertised listings by their bid multiplied by how relevant the listing is to the page and its quality, so a more relevant listing can appear ahead of a higher bid.

Sellers pay only when a shopper clicks their ad, never for views. A click never costs more than the seller’s bid; usually it costs just enough to keep its place in the auction.

We don’t charge sellers for clicks we identify as invalid, such as repeated clicks by the same shopper within 24 hours, automated traffic, or sellers clicking their own ads.

An ad never shows the shop of the listing you are viewing, and sellers don’t see their own ads.

Your data

To show and measure ads we record which ads were shown and clicked, with an anonymous device identifier and a one-way hash of your network address (never the address itself). This is used to count views and clicks, filter invalid clicks and tell sellers how many orders followed a click, without sharing who you are.