Broken eBay RSS search feeds now fixed !
Whilst doing some tinkering with the site the other day I managed to accidentally break the ability for people to create working eBay misspelling RSS feeds. This is now fixed so your feeds should work correctly now. If you don’t know what an RSS feed is and why you should consider using them, read on !
RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, was originally a way of allowing computers to exchange information such as news feeds but increasingly it’s being used by humans to subscribe to updates from websites and blogs such as this one. Incidentally you can subscribe to our feed by clicking here.
So why would you want to use RSS to search eBay ?
One, it’s easy. Two, it’s amazingly powerful.
Let’s say that you’re looking for a Sony Playstation. You could visit Missing-Auctions.com every few days and run a search but if you were to search using RSS you’d be notified as soon as newly listed misspelled Playstations were added. This means that you can be the first bidder and potentially grab a bargain.
So how do you use RSS feeds to search eBay ? Well the first thing you need to do is to get a feedreader. Since I use Windows I use FeedReader but there are feedreaders available for the Mac platform as well on-line versions that you can access anywhere that you can get internet access.
Then you need to head over to our RSS feeds page where you can create your very own eBay typo RSS search feed. Simply enter a search term (brand names work best), exclude any words that you don’t want to appear (optional), select your prefered eBay site, choose a category and then click ‘Make Feed’.
Missing-Auctions.com will then create your feed for you and present it to you in a number of ways. If you’re using a local feed reader all you need to do is to right-click and copy the link to your feed. This can then be pasted into your feed reader. If you use an on-line feed reader and it’s listed on the page simply click on the appropriate icon and you’ll be taken directly to that site so that you can log in. (If you use a service that isn’t listed, let me know which one it is by leaving a comment on this post and I’ll add it in).
That’s it ! Now you can site back and wait for those misspelled eBay auctions to come to you. Once you’ve found your bargain, simply unsubscribe from the feed.