Quotation marks (also known as double-quotes)

Searches for only the word or phrase in the listing title

"Action" DVD
returns items that have the exact words Action and DVD in the title in any order.

“Action DVD"
returns items that have these two words in the title in this specific order.

Asterisk (*)

Acts as a wild card operator

Note: An * cannot be used at the beginning of a query (it must be preceded by at least two other characters)

book*
returns items that have words starting with book in the title, such as books, bookshelf, and bookmark.

Parentheses around items separated by commas

Act together as an OR operator

Note: You should use parentheses around items separated by commas together for best results

(purse,handbag)
returns items that contain either the word purse OR handbag in the title.

Minus sign

Acts as a NOT operator

Note: You need a space before the minus sign and no space after

Red -shoes
returns items that have red in the title and do NOT have shoes in the title.

Results that contain all the words you enter

Enter the keywords with a space between them.

new DVD player

returns items whose titles contain all 3 words in any order.

Results that contain the exact words you typed in a particular order

Place quotation marks around the group of words.

"New York"

returns items whose titles contain New York in that order only, but not those that contain just New or just York or the words York New.

Results that don't contain a certain word

Place a minus sign immediately before the word to be excluded, with no space after the minus sign.

shirt blue –wool

returns items whose titles contain the words shirt and blue but not the word wool.

Results that don’t contain several words

Put a minus sign before each word, or group the words inside parentheses and separate with commas but no spaces.

bowl -(black,green,purple) or bowl –black –green –purple

returns items whose titles contain the word bowl but not the words black, green, and purple.

Results that contain either of the words

Enter keywords in parentheses separated by commas but no spaces.

(purse,handbag)

returns items whose titles contain either the word purse or handbag.

Results that contain words starting with a particular sequence of letters

Enter the letter sequence followed by an asterisk.

book*

returns items whose titles contain words starting with book, such as books, bookshelf, and bookmark

Results that contain only a specific spelling of a word

Enter the keywords or phrases in quotes.

"book"

returns items whose titles contain the exact word book but not the word bookshelf.

Keyword to keyword

Modifies your keyword query to search for either your original keyword, or a synonymous keyword from our dictionary

Searches for red shoes will return items that have the words red and either shoe or shoes in the title.

Keyword to category

Modifies your query to search for items that have a specific keyword in the title or live in a specific related category.

Searches for Harry Potter DVD will return items that have Harry Potter in the title and have either DVD in the title, or live in the DVDs category.

Keyword to item specifics

Modifies your query to search for items that have the keywords from the original query in the title, or have particular item specifics used in the item description.

A search for Nike Golf will return items that have golf in the title and either have Nike in the title, or have Brand=Nike specified in the item specifics section of the description.