Whitman's out and the new guy in charge, John Donahoe, says step one to fixing eBay is fixing its internal search engine. "Our buyers tell us that we know you have unmatched selection, but we can't always find what we want," Donahoe told Bits. Unable to find what they want to buy using eBay's search, Donahoe's theory goes, these users go to Google instead. What Donahoe doesn't mention: eBay has been talking about improving its search for years.

This time, to improve results, eBay will integrate PayPal data — "data about what people actually purchased and bought," Donahoe said — into its search algorithm. How timely, since eBay has only owned PayPal for more than five years now.

Something needs to change. Check out the top result for a search on the term "Wii." Somehow I don't think eBay's earning a lot of revenue on listed items like this one.

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