In Spring 2008, eBay changed the default search sort from "Time Ending Soonest" to "Best Match." This caused quite a stir in the eBay community because sellers didn’t know what Best Match meant. Before, a seller would know exactly when their auction would rise to the top. With Best Match, it was harder to figure out what eBay thought was important. A lot of sellers were upset because they didn’t know what criteria eBay was using to rank the results.

Fortunately since then, things have settled down. eBay has revealed how Best Match works and why they’ve implemented it.

What Best Match tries to do is provide a shopper on eBay a better experience. Before, buyers saw a page of results that could have good and bad sellers all mixed together. This resulted in some unhappy customers and that wasn’t good. Now, eBay is trying to use Best Match to provide a better shopping experience. As a result, eBay will reward good sellers with higher rankings and punish bad sellers with lower rankings. eBay analyzes both the listing and the seller to determine if the product is the "Best Match" for the buyer.

What it boils down to from eBay’s perspective is that the more likely a buyer will be satisfied, the higher the listing should be in the results. On eBay, buyer satisfaction has to do with competitive pricing, accurate listings, and high seller ratings.

Here are 3 tips to increase your Best Match ranking.

1. Recognize that Best Match isn’t just about your listing, it’s about you as a seller too. Your feedback and detailed seller ratings factor into the equation. Are you getting 5 star ratings, or is there room for improvement? Provide a great buying experience and your ratings will reflect it. The higher your feedback and seller ratings, the more boost you’ll get in Best Match.

2. Make your listing relevant. Writing good titles and descriptions is more important than ever before. Use up those 55 characters in your title in the most relevant way because eBay looks closely at which words you use in your title. If those words have been in other listings that sell, chances are it will move your listing up a few places. The same goes for your description. The more you write a title and description to sell, the higher you’ll be.

3. List with the proper price and format. If you’ve got more than one, list them all in one listing at a fixed price. The more sales in fixed-price format, the higher your listing will rise. If you’re selling a single or unique item, list it as an auction. Auctions will naturally rise higher in results as time progresses. And for all formats, price your item as competitively as you can to gain interest. The more buyers visiting and bidding/buying, the higher your listing will rise.