Every eBay seller eventually asks the same question: why is my listing buried on page 7 when another seller's nearly identical listing is sitting at the top of page 1?
The answer is Cassini, eBay's search algorithm. Cassini decides which listings buyers see first, and getting on its good side is the difference between a store that grows and a store that stagnates.
The frustrating thing about eBay SEO is that a lot of what gets written about Cassini is outdated, guessing, or recycled from Google SEO habits that don't apply here. This post breaks down what actually matters in 2026, what doesn't, and the specific changes you can make today to push listings up the rankings.
What Cassini Is (and Isn't)
Cassini is eBay's internal search engine. When a buyer types a query into the eBay search bar, Cassini decides which listings to show and in what order.
Unlike Google, Cassini isn't trying to answer a question or find the "best" result. It's trying to predict which listing is most likely to lead to a sale that makes both the buyer and eBay happy. That's a critical distinction: Cassini is a sales probability engine, not a search engine in the traditional sense.
This shapes everything about how you should think about ranking. Cassini doesn't care about your title being clever or your description being beautifully written. It cares about:
- Does this listing match what the buyer searched for?
- Is this seller reliable and has a good history?
- Is the price competitive?
- Does the listing convert well historically?
- Will the buyer actually receive the item on time and in good condition?
If you can move those levers, you move up the rankings. Everything else is noise.
The Factors That Actually Affect Ranking
Based on public statements from eBay, seller experience, and results from running experiments on thousands of listings, these are the factors that most consistently impact Cassini ranking:
1. Keyword Match in Your Title
Your title is the single most important ranking factor. You get 80 characters. Use every single one.
Rules for title optimisation:
- Put the most important keywords at the front
- Match buyer search language, not technical jargon (use "Wii" not "Nintendo Wii Home Console System Bundle")
- Include brand, model, condition, key features, size, and colour where relevant
- Skip filler words like "look!" or "L@@K" or "wow", they waste characters and look spammy
- Don't repeat keywords ("Nintendo Wii Nintendo Wii game"), Cassini doesn't reward that
- Don't use unrelated keywords for "visibility", keyword stuffing gets listings demoted
A good title for a Wii game might look like: "New Super Mario Bros Wii Nintendo Wii Complete Manual PAL Tested Working"
That title hits the brand, the title, the platform, the region, the condition, and the key details. A buyer searching any of those terms will see your listing.
2. Item Specifics
Item specifics are the structured fields eBay asks you to fill out, brand, model, colour, material, size, and so on. A lot of sellers treat them as optional. They're not.
Cassini uses item specifics to filter search results. When a buyer clicks "Brand: Nike" in the sidebar, your listing only shows up if you told eBay your item's brand was Nike. Leave the field blank and you disappear from that filter entirely.
Fill in every item specific eBay offers, even the optional ones. It's the fastest ranking improvement you can make to an existing listing.
3. Sell-Through Rate
Your sell-through rate is the percentage of your listed items that actually sell within a given period. A store with high sell-through looks healthy to Cassini. A store with low sell-through looks like dead weight.
This is why stale inventory is such a quiet problem. Listings that have sat for months without selling drag down your store-wide sell-through, which drags down the ranking of every listing you have.
Cleaning up stale inventory by repricing, relisting, or liquidating has two benefits: you free up capital, and you improve your store's health signal to Cassini.
4. Conversion Rate (Click-to-Sale)
Cassini watches what happens after a buyer clicks on your listing. If they click and leave immediately, that's a negative signal. If they click and buy, that's a big positive signal.
Ways to improve conversion:
- Take better photos: at least 6, well-lit, showing the product clearly
- Price competitively: the number one reason buyers click away is price
- Write a clear, honest description: reduces buyer hesitation
- Enable Best Offer: captures sales that would otherwise bounce
- Use Free Shipping where the maths works: Cassini favours free shipping listings
5. Seller Performance Metrics
Your overall seller health matters a lot. Cassini suppresses listings from sellers with:
- Recent defects (late shipments, cancelled orders, unresolved cases)
- High return rates
- Negative feedback trends
- Violations of eBay policies
Becoming a Top Rated Seller gives you a visible ranking boost, a discount on final value fees, and access to features like Top Rated Plus. It's worth the effort.
6. Listing Freshness
Cassini gives a visibility boost to new listings. This is partly to surface new inventory, and partly to test whether a new listing converts well before committing to ranking it long-term.
Two strategies that exploit this:
- Create new listings regularly, even if it's just a few per week. Steady new listings keep your store "fresh" in Cassini's eyes.
- End and relist stale listings that haven't sold. This resets the freshness signal and gives the item another shot.
7. Listing Format and Store Subscription
Fixed price listings generally outperform auction-style for most categories in 2026. Auctions are still good for genuinely rare items where price discovery matters, but for everyday reselling, Buy It Now is more reliable.
If you list more than ~50 items a month, an eBay Store subscription can be worth it. It reduces your final value fees on most categories and gives you more free insertions, which directly improves your cost-per-listing economics.
8. Promoted Listings
Running promoted listings doesn't technically improve your organic ranking, but it does buy you visibility above organic results. For new sellers and competitive categories, that visibility itself generates the clicks and sales that feed Cassini's positive signals.
Just don't overdo it, we wrote a full breakdown on how much you should actually spend on promoted listings if you want to dig in.