Sorting by relevance
Summary: edv-man criticizes the default sorting of reviews by relevance instead of chronology, as it could distort the view of sellers. petersmodellbahnstuebchen and others agree that sorting by newest is preferred. stubenkram asks about the criteria for relevance, while miriam@ebay explains that relevance is AI-driven without revealing exact criteria. stubenkram and roter_rauch express concerns about manipulation by eBay by not showing all reviews. Suggestions for improvement and more transparency are being called for.
I just noticed that the reviews are now sorted by RELEVANCE by default.
What I’d really like to know is:
Who or what is it that presumes to decide for me (or, basically, for all users) what is relevant for me (or for others)?
Aside from that, it’s nonsense to pre-sort things like this, because it distorts the view of the seller.
For example, with someone who may have made mistakes in the past and improved, an old mistake can end up sticking to them for years, unfairly, just because some stupid.... AI thinks that’s relevant.
What do you think about that?
lidor3073
·2 days agoAnd if you have a lot of time, you can access the classic rating profile via this, at least for forum users, and then you can enter the member name (replace community member name) in the address bar of the link to view the ratings of that person. Click on the user, then on the board on the star. A new browser window then opens. At least that’s how it is for me (iPhone/Safari).
edv-man
OPAug 5, 2026 at 6:43 PM"Awarded badges" - ouch ;)
lidor3073
·Aug 5, 2026 at 7:14 PM@edv-man
Yeah, I know how much that hurts.
I’ve already brought it up several times myself too.
over_dog
·2 days agoHello, actually intuition and logic should determine the course with further developments !!! Also, success, if one intends it, requires a certain "simplicity" !!! All of that is missing for me when I look at the policy Ebay is driving more and more ! So I try to take it with humor !
Something like our neighbor's attack. The other day he drove his car into the garage as usual in the evening. He should have opened the gate first !!!!!!!
Regards
roter_rauch
·2 days agoThe same goes the other way around, though. Looking specifically at negative reviews also doesn’t always work anymore, because the supposedly relevant review novels push everything else down. And the classic review view also isn’t always even possible to open anymore. (!)
I’m absolutely convinced that with AI, every kind of nonsense is being justified these days. "Random principle" would be the more fitting term; ok, weighted according to some supposed most-wanted criteria.
And the manipulation behind it? Sure. At eBay just as in any local store with great special offers at the door, to get rid of slow-moving stock and overpriced junk.
Still – I’d sign up for going back to the old sorting right away too. And yes: all this manipulation is indecent. Back in the 1970s that was just hip marketing, today it’s just annoying because it’s getting more and more perfidious.
stubenkram
·2 days agoHello, @miriam@ebay
Thanks very much for your feedback here in the topic.
I’m aware of that, and I had only suspected that most eBay members feel the same way I do and find this constant switching annoying.
What about a representative survey, 😉 asking which sorting eBay members would prefer? “Most relevant” or “newest” reviews first. I can’t imagine that the “most relevant” would win out there.
It still works (for the last 12 months), @roter_rauch You just have to switch it.
Really? I can still access it. However, I only use my laptop. Maybe it’s different in the mobile view?
roter_rauch
·2 days agoOf course I know that I can "toggle" the view.
And not a clickable rating overview – but yes, that’s how it is here (browser), especially with accounts that apparently have hardly any traffic. Ones I often wanted to look at, for example after receiving price suggestions, and to see whether I might be dealing with jokers or habitual complainers before I accept. The number of ratings in brackets is visible, but you can’t open anything at all. Maybe if they have been inactive for too long, there’s some deeper logic behind it.
lidor3073
·2 days ago@roter_rauch
I have a negative rating from years ago that I got unfairly. If I want to look at the crap that came in over the last 12 months again, I select one of my items, click on my profile “About this seller” and at the very bottom under “Filter: All ratings” I select negative. Sometimes I do that and then I get annoyed.
stubenkram
·Aug 5, 2026 at 7:22 PMThat’s probably how it is, @roter_rauch Maybe eBay freezes the ratings after a certain period has passed if the account is no longer actively used.
I tried a bit to see whether it’s the same for me, that I can no longer access the ratings of inactive eBay users. But as long as I still get shown a rating number, it works.
In one case I know that the eBay member died 7 years ago and it’s possible that the account hasn’t been used for about 10 years now. This member used to have lots of ratings, but now it says 0 everywhere. Nothing can be accessed anymore. I suspect that this account might be deleted soon.
miriam@ebay
Hello @edv-man and everyone! Thanks a lot for your feedback.
We can see that some of you would prefer the default sorting by Newest in the review profile, so that you can better assess a seller’s current development, and we keep seeing this wish come up in the community.
Sorting by Most relevant does, however, highlight reviews that can be especially helpful. Various factors are taken into account here, including topics mentioned frequently. We can’t disclose the exact weighting of the criteria in detail, though.
@petersmodellbahnstuebchen - Thanks for bringing me in, I’ll take over here for @samantha@ebay . As intended, your own reviews are generally sorted by Newest instead. This view provides a clear overview of your own activity and makes it easier to find reviews you created recently.
Best regards
Miriam
stubenkram
·3 days agoHello @miriam@ebay
Thanks a lot for your reply.
Not some, but probably almost everyone who regularly looks at other eBay members’ feedback. There are currently several clicks required: first switching to the "classic view" of the feedback and then changing to "newest". I find that very annoying.
That’s very regrettable. I would very much welcome a little more transparency. After all, it’s quite important for buyers and sellers which feedback is shown first. Sellers may orient themselves toward the feedback that is considered "relevant" by eBay and might therefore handle their future sales listings and their fulfillment differently. But they can’t do that without knowing what counts as "relevant" for eBay and what doesn’t, and how the individual factors are weighted.
If there’s no clarity at all, then of course there is plenty of room for speculation about what eBay considers especially "relevant":
The last 12 or 6 months?
Sales without (or with) cases opened or closed?
Especially detailed feedback (text)?
Feedback where all detailed stars were given?
Feedback on especially high-priced items?
Feedback for items with free shipping?
Feedback on items for which the seller paid something to eBay (e.g. listing in a 2nd category or advertising)
A weighting/reallocation of positive and negative feedback if a seller has defects in their seller account.
and so on.
miriam@ebay
Hello @stubenkram - it’s understandable that you’d like more transparency about how the sorting by Most relevant comes about and why certain reviews are shown first. The selection is made with the help of AI, which takes into account, among other things, frequently mentioned topics. Unfortunately, we can’t provide any insight into the exact way it works or the weighting of the criteria.
In addition, I’d like to point out that we cannot draw any conclusions from the feedback in this topic about the opinion of the majority of our global users, as the number of community members involved in this discussion is not representative for that. Regardless, every constructive piece of feedback is valuable to us and helps us identify potential for improvement - thank you for that!
Kind regards
Miriam
edv-man
OP3 days ago · EditedI still see this as critical, because it is and remains an imposition by eBay to decide for me what is relevant to me!
And that is patronizing.
stubenkram
·2 days ago · EditedBut that doesn’t seem to be the case when sorting by "relevant", @perfect-sally In that case, more recent or older negative ratings are (initially) not captured at all or are pushed down/to the back.
So far, though, I’ve mainly looked at rating profiles of private sellers with 100% positive ratings. Positive ratings that were left more than 12 months ago are only captured to a very small extent when sorting by "relevant".
It’s more than that, @edv-man It’s manipulation when a potential buyer, after clicking on "show all ratings" for a seller, is by no means shown all seller ratings at first, but only a possibly very much reduced selection.
How many ratings are shown under "relevant" also depends on whether a seller has been active regularly in recent years and has received ratings.
However, the main criterion for which seller ratings are shown there and how many seems to be related to the type of items a seller has most often offered. Ratings from one or two main areas (item groups/categories) are captured. Ratings relating to items offered less often are filtered out and do not appear at all among the "relevant" ratings.
That’s probably what @miriam@ebay meant by "frequently mentioned topics"? The ratings shown by relevance are limited to similar items that were offered particularly often.
Here are two examples of private sellers with 100% positive ratings:
a total of 203 ratings, 108 of them as seller, no automatic ratings. Under "most relevant", only 89 ratings are shown.
Total 286 ratings, 114 of them as seller, including 3 automatic ratings. Under "most relevant", only 25 ratings are shown.
The order of the listed "relevant" ratings is completely mysterious to me. Does it seem to be determined by chance? The fact that some more recent ratings don’t even appear there yet could be related to the fact that such ratings might still be changed or deleted. Or the system is lagging behind.
I can’t understand why such a secret is made of it. For buyers and sellers alike, it would be interesting to know what criteria there are and how they are weighted for the "relevant" ratings, including the order.
It is definitely not helpful for me if I have to piece together for myself why some ratings are captured and others are not. It’s also not helpful if part of the ratings isn’t shown to me at first and I have to click through first in order to be able to see, for example, all 114 ratings instead of 25. That’s not practical. Ebay makes it harder for me to quickly see what I want to know.
The "patronizing" that @edv-man mentioned is, for me, the fact that Ebay makes a preselection of the ratings among the initially displayed "most relevant ratings": They are (almost) only the ratings for more frequently offered items, which may not interest me in the slightest.
stubenkram
·3 days agoHello everyone!
I wanted to ask this question myself too at some point. I couldn't find anything about it in the "Help" section.
By what criteria are reviews classified as "relevant"?
I can't reliably see any pattern there. For sellers with 100% positive reviews, do reviews with a lot of text seem to rank very highly among the "Relevant" ones?
edv-man
OP3 days agoInterestingly, this topic already came up once in 2025.
(I had searched for something like that, but found nothing)
Now all of a sudden it’s being shown at the top right of this page:Rating view change from "most relevant" to "newest"
But there must already have been a switch back to sorting by "Newest" at some point, otherwise I wouldn’t have noticed it only now.
But now we’re up the creek again.
petersmodellbahnstuebchen
·3 days agoHi @edv-man
I only see one difference:
With other sellers I have to switch from Most relevant to Newest
With my own reviews it’s directly set to Newest
Maybe dear @samantha@ebay has an idea what could be causing this, or could you pass it on again, thanks Samantha. ❤️
Best wishes from the Baltic Sea
Peter
perfect-sally
·3 days agoAside from that, it’s nonsense to pre-sort like this, because it distorts the view of the seller.
E.g. with someone who may have made mistakes in the past and improved, they can end up with some old mistake hanging around for years, unfairly, just because some stupid.... AI thinks it’s relevant.
And what do you base it on, and how do you tell from the sorted ratings whether a seller has improved or not? I think it’s good if “old” ratings from such sellers are also shown; otherwise you might as well not bother.
edv-man
OP3 days agoIs that question serious?
The time order that used to be standard, with the newest on top and the oldest at the bottom - that shows exactly the progression or development of a seller..
petersmodellbahnstuebchen
·3 days agoMoin @edv-man
I completely agree with you. The first thing I do is switch the reviews to newest when I look at a user.
Best wishes from the Baltic Sea
Peter