TypoTrawler - testers wanted - new take on Fat Fingers!

TypoTrawler

Hi, my name's John Andrews and I'm one of the developers at http://www.typotrawler.com

I would first like to apologize for posting a new thread whilst having a post count of 0. This is not spam or an advertisement, merely me looking for help. If this violates any rules, please delete it

Many of you will probably be aware of services such as Fat Fingers which find misspelled items. Misspelled items tend to have fewer people viewing them because if the listing is 'New Latop' and someone searches for 'laptop', the item wont be shown, thus less bids are made. Hence, by finding these items, you can grab a bargain.

TypoTrawler is different to Fat Fingers because instead of users having to enter the search term by hand (e.g. 'laptop'), we continually search eBay for hundreds of thousands of different misspelled items. We them group them into the categories on our website so that users can easily view them.

We're a new website, so we're interested in some feedback. Please give us a try and then drop us a suggestion either via the site or this forum.

For example, what the site does, or how it works might not be obvious, so let us know. We want to improve our service!

Thanks for your time.

Regards,

John and the TypoTrawler team

dipsy

Hi

looks great......

buglawton

Gave it a try - nicely executed but the tech section is flooded with printer ink Ebay items. Need to be able to filter these out, or won't see anything else.

(Next, people will be deliberately listing typo items in Ebay to get more exposure!)

TypoTrawler

buglawton wrote: »

Next, people will be deliberately listing typo items in Ebay to get more exposure!

It does happen! We actually remove results where there are two or more typos in the same listing (what are the odds that really happening?) for this very reason.

blaise802001

TypoTrawler wrote: »

It does happen! We actually remove results where there are two or more typos in the same listing (what are the odds that really happening?) for this very reason.

Oh I wouldn't know some people just can't spell :rolleyes:

TypoTrawler

buglawton wrote: »

Gave it a try - nicely executed but the tech section is flooded with printer ink Ebay items. Need to be able to filter these out, or won't see anything else.

The idea is that you click the thumbs down button next to items you don't want to see. With time these will be automatically removed from our search.

I've just removed all items with the typo 'compat' for you though

TypoTrawler

blaise802001 wrote: »

Oh I wouldn't know some people just can't spell :rolleyes:

It's quite worrying the amount of typos there are!

There are currently over 80,000 items in the database (across the US and UK sites).

'porcelain' seems to be a real killer for some people

glitterkandy

Looks good but is this typo in the help pop-ups deliberate?:rotfl:

TinyTrawler

Hold your mouse over the TinyTrawler button for an in-depth descrition!

TypoTrawler

You got me! *rushes to fix*

GregtheHammer

Very good site - could be very useful the future

Top Stuff!

StaffsSW

Does the search engine use algorithmic error or natural error searching? In that I mean will it search for "playstation" "pmaystation" "pnaystation" etc, or will it search for typos where keys are next to eachother "pkaystation" for example?

Make the most of this thread will it is live - when I posted about my own (not too dissimilar) site, the MSE police came down on me like a ton of bricks!