The default eBay search is pretty easy to emulate because, well, it's simple. Being able to duplicate the more sophisticated functionality of its advanced search is a bit more tricky, because we need to crack open the HTML itself and see what's inside.
The default search is certainly attractive enough:
Crack open the HTML code, however, and the form is insanely complicated, so complicated that I couldn't really make head nor tail of it without stripping away some of the core functionality. Nonetheless, assume you always want to check all categories and the basic search form can be reduced to:
<form method="get" action="http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll">
<input type="hidden" name="from" value="R40" />
<input type="hidden" name="_trksid" value="m37" />
<input tabindex="1" type="text" name="satitle" id="satitle" value="" maxlength="300" size="30" />
<input type="hidden" name="category0" value="" />
<input type="submit" value="Search" tabindex="3">
</form>
here's the cool thing, though. Search through the source code for "Search title" and you'll find that there's a single checkbox value that makes that option work:
<input type="checkbox" name="fts" value="2" />Search title <b>and</b> description<br />
My question, therefore, is what happens if I just make this checkbox available in the simple form shown earlier? Just literally copy and paste that single line of HTML. Here's the result:
A bit of testing will reveal that it works perfectly! If you want to just hide the setting, turn the checkbox into a hidden variable, paying attention to the default value that the eBay server wants to receive (detailed in the original HTML):
<input type="hidden" name="fts" value="2" />
Further experimentation shows that some of the variables being sent are unnecessary! In fact you can do just fine with the following code, added line for the checkbox highlighted in bold:
<form method="get" action="http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll">
<input type="text" name="satitle" value="" maxlength="300" size="30" />
<input type="checkbox" name="fts" value="2" /> search titles and descriptions<input type="submit" value="Search" tabindex="3">
</form>
Or, if you want the minimal search box and know that every time someone wants to search, they really want both title and description:
<form method="get" action="http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll">
<input type="hidden" name="fts" value="2" />
<input type="text" name="satitle" value="" maxlength="300" size="30" />
<input type="submit" value="Search" />
</form>
Hope that helps you customize your page!
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I'd add this box into my site and it's working just fine