Since the new OCR system was released, sellers are abusing it in order to boost their listings higher in search results. I reported this issue to the support team about 8 days ago, but I haven’t received a reply yet and in the meantime, my sales have dropped off completely due to this listing manipulation.
Right now, Gameflip search feels like a CAPTCHA test.. if you make your image unreadable by the OCR engine your listings will appear at the top of search results but the buyers have to be superhuman to figure out whats actually being sold. I’ve attached a few example screenshots I grabbed from the site this morning. These are just random ones, but there are more like them. A lot of sellers are clearly using the same technique to avoid OCR.
Is this really acceptable? These manipulated listings dominate search results filling pages and pages of unreadable garbage (Terrible buyer experience) and pushing honest listings like mine and others back to pages 8 or deeper. It makes it nearly impossible for legitimate sellers to compete, and it’s creating a very poor buyer experience too.
is this against the terms and conditions? im really thinking about changing my listing images to match these sellers and trying to get some type of exposure and hopefully sales.
is there an option to turn off the OCR maybe a setting or configuration in the API when we make the listing?, ive looked into the API documentation but im not technical enough to understand all that.
This post:
talks about making edits to the extracted text, but how do we do that, I see no option?
We’re aware of your concern and want to clarify that intentionally manipulating listing images to avoid proper recognition and create unfair visibility is not acceptable behavior. Listings must remain clear and informative for buyers.
Our team is reviewing these cases, and actions may be taken against sellers who attempt to bypass marketplace rules. In the meantime, we strongly recommend you do not replicate these practices, as they may result in removal of listings or account action.
Regarding your support ticket, I’ll flag this internally so the responsible team can check on it. We appreciate your patience as we review reports like these.
@MajorTom
A small suggestion for searching:
Tags were added to Adopt Me, but none of the players are looking for “flyable” and “ridable”, in trade they always say “fly” and “ride”. Neon and mega are fine. Is it possible to add a way to search for other words by tags? Flyable=Fly, Ridable=Ride.
