Advice on tags

[KaylasKreationsTX]

Hello! I finally got my shop up and running. I just wanted to see if y'all had any advice on the tags I am using and what I could do to improve them. Thank you for your help!

[Former_Member]

Kayla,
I just took notice of your request, sorry my bad. And it is late at night so the time needed to make a better answer is at a premium at the moment.
But and there is always a but. Wreaths are a beautiful way to add a bit of brightness to your home as seen from the street. I had forgotten how much so until I looked into your store. Beautiful and I am a big fan of pretty.
But do a couple of thins please.
Why?
Look at this search.
https://www.etsy.com/search?q=Wreaths%20decorative%20door%20blue&order=most_relevant&view_type=list&...
It is a simple search intended to find something decorative as a wreath in blue to hang on my rather drab front door.
It comes from a desire to have something decorative hanging on my door that is blue and possibly a wreath.
Why the word decorative? Because I did not want a holiday wreath.
So decorative made sense.
One of many words I could have used and also one chosen to help pare the list down form some 88 thousand results using just the word WREATH to a list that was smaller.
In four words I described what I was looking for.
Yet on this listing:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/165055105/deco-mesh-everyday-home-decor-blue-brown?ref=shop_home_active

With a title of some 16 words and tags that included multiple repetitions of compound combinations of words non of them included the four words I chose to look for a wreath with.

In order for a listing to be FOUND by a search engine ALL of the words used in the search request MUST be found in the listing.

And all four of those words were not found. Three of them probably were the the word decorative was not.

Titles that are way to wordy and do not nescissarily describe what the listing is simply and clearly are not only awkward to read but the total number of words used in them can work against being placed on a list generated by a search engine in a favorable position.

And tags too can be way to wordy with the same problem. Compound or multiple word tags that do little more than include the word wreath for example while the adjoining word might represent some characteristic of the listing CAN be counter productive as the value of a compound word tag is having the search used EXACTLY match the wording of the tag.
Your TAGS and the Title together should be able to describe your listing as written in the description of the listing.
If they neither represent the product AS LISTED the total word count when found can work against a premium listing location on the list generated and valuable listing real-estate on the listing is wasted using non-essential wording.
The tags should not only reflect your description but synonyms, alternative spellings and colloquialisms that might be used around the world to look for something.
My search for a blue door wreath that was decorative resulted in 18 very nice wreaths all that represented what I was looking for and were all on one page making it easy to scroll through them in LIST mode, read the titles and decide if I wanted any of them. If I none of them were desirable I can easily change one word of my search request and get a different selection listed out for me.
Such as this one:
https://www.etsy.com/search?q=Wreaths%20door%20blue%20white&view_type=list&ship_to=ZZ
This time 15 pages of them. And for me that is 12 more pages than I am willing to browse through.
That is what a search engine is for, to thin out the selections so "I" can have a usable selection or list of things to look at. And "I" decide what that is going to be by adding words to "my" search so a list that what "I" want can be generated.
I have asked that a list include those intended to hand on a door, that they be a wreath and also that they include the colors of Blue and White. If I should choose a material that may with stand the weather with out facing I might add the word Ribbon as a material that would work.
https://www.etsy.com/search?q=Wreaths+door+blue+white+ribbon&order=most_relevant&view_type=list&ship...
Your listed product is still not there on my list of things found. Why? Because the word WHITE did not show up in the title or tags yet it is clearly shown in the photographs.
But the word wreath was listed 13 times including once by itself. The other times as part of a compound tag depended on the search format used to be an exact match of the term found in order to have any value.
At least to me the polka dots look white in the pictures.

So look at the notes in the previous couple of threads as how the listing and the search are the same thing but just from a different view point. That of one looking for something and that of something being listed to be found.

Hope this help some and please come back

[KaylasKreationsTX]

Thank you so very much for the comment on my wreaths and for your answer to my question! This has really helped me out. I had read a few things about tags before starting my shop, but was not sure if I was on the right track. I will go back and really work on the tags some more. Thanks again for taking time to answer my question!

[Former_Member]

Kayla
When looking at the tags (and title as they do work in conjunction with one another) keep in mind this.
My search for a decorative blue door wreath is not a very good sentence. It does not have to be.
It is a command to the search engine to find listings with those words some where in the search area. The search area is the title and tags.
If the words Decorative, Blue, Door and wreath were used anywhere in your listing in those areas than a word match will take place and a list of things found will begin to be generated.
However your title should be readable and make sense.
Your description also should be readable and makes sense.
Why?
Because those are locations a potential customer will want to read to be told about a product.
The tags give you an option now to just give words with out having to have them in a logical order to makes sense.
The search engine is doing no more than word matching to a request. to find things.
Thus if I can extract words from a sentence and those words are descriptive of what I want to find. I can tell the search engine to go find those words (in the tags and titles) and match up with them. The tags give you the capability of extracting those words from your description and any synonyms that might be relevant including probable miss-spellings or alternate words that might be used and just write them down so that no matter how many different ways I may word a sentence to find a product such as yours, those words are included in the search field. As long as those words actually meet the requirements of describing your product the probability of getting used to find it with is very high.
The idea being this! The successful use of a search engine assumes the user has some idea of what they want to find and are able to also describe to the best of their ability what that item is.
You on the other hand want to describe your product to the best of your ability.
When some how that matches up to a couple of words used for each it becomes successful.

[KaylasKreationsTX]

That makes sense and helps a lot! That was one thing I was not sure of was if the title and tags had to have the exact same words to have the best chance of being found. I had read that somewhere and that was why I had made the titles so long and wordy. So for example, the blue and silver wreath above that you talked about before, could I change the title to something like the following: Deco Mesh Blue Brown Silver Year Round Wreath for Door or Wall Decor? Then in the tags, I could have more descriptive terms ( some of what I already have) but add in some like "decorative wreath" and other descriptive words or synonyms people might use that I have not thought of yet. Thanks again for all your help!

[Former_Member]

Kayla
It is to some extent a balancing act between having a lot of words or a few words and having them the same in title and tags or different.

For example if I can do it and have it makes sense as an explanation.
Assume for a moment a 4 or 5 word search request will be used to generate a list of things to look at.
Why four or five words?
For the most part a manageable list of almost anything on Etsy can be generated using 4 or 5 words to request a search engine to generate a list of similar items.
Also I can create examples that are easier to see how they work using 4 or 5 words to search with.

let me use as an example one of your product listings. This one:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/164440620/deco-mesh-fall-autumn-curly-moss-green?ref=shop_home_active

And let’s also establish some basic rules that while basic are not exactly simple.

It is true that when an exact match is found in a listing to a search word or phrase than that match is more important.
That when it comes to an individual word match in a listing to a search request the more individual words found in the listing that matches a word in the search request. the closer to the front of the list that particular listing will be. In comparison to other matches with in listings.
one way for you to do that is to include the same word in the title as you did in the tag.
For a give word in the search request that matches that word in the listing, you now have two matches to the search request.
But, there is a but.
Part of the calculations done to evaluate where a particular listing might end up on the list generated by a search request is to evaluate the number of times a word is matched in comparison to the total number of words in the search field (titles and tags).
Say for example a word in the search request was Red.
And the word Red was in a listing “Title” and “Tags”
That would be 2 matches.
2 matches for 1 search word.
But, again another but.
Suppose the title was 4 words long. Little Red Riding Hood.
Now the importance of the match is one word out of four for 2 matches to one search word.
That is not a bad statistic.
But suppose for example the Title was “Little Red Riding Hood and her Basket of Cookies”
Now that match is One word out of 9 for two matches to one search word.
That is a very poor statistic.
Enter probability.
Suppose also that the title of Little Red Riding Hood was an excellent descriptor of the product.
And the addition of he words “and her Basket of Cookies” had very little to do with product although in a stretch it might have some bearing.
What then is the probability of some one actually using the terms “and a Basket of Cookies” to use as search terms?
The odds are that the probability of those words actually being used to find the listing with is very low. And including them in the title has decreased the importance of the match of “Little Red Riding Hood.” by increasing the word count of the title.
The important part of the Title needs to be retained as in the title. It is descriptive and easy to read.
The non important part of the title should then be tags. Why? There is a low probability that they would be used but they might be. Reduce the word count from “and a basket of cookies” to this: Basket, Cookies. From 5 words to 2. Give them a space as a tag. By not having them have to be a in a sentence the total word count has dropped from 9 words to 6 and the last two words in the less valuable real estate as a tag. This latter explanation is not covered very well in the instruction of titles and tags and may not even be there any more depending on recent changes. It was recommended at one point in time the optimum size of a title would be about 7 words.
And that makes sense when you take into account readability.
What is readability?
I read titles. If I can not read a title and have it describe what I am looking at? I stop looking.
Now did this make any logical sense so far?

Here is your title:
Deco Mesh Fall Autumn Curly Moss Green Ribbon Wreath for Door or Wall Orange Brown Gold Holiday
Now I am not going to say my version is a better title, it is just more readable.
Door or Wall Fall Wreath in Gold, Green, Orange and Browns.

Tags: Autumn, Moss, Ribbon, Deco Mesh, Ribbon, house wares, home decor, Plaid, Bows, Holidays, 24 inch

Now there are 11 tags all of which have some probability of being used to actually FIND a decorative wreath with. And you have either 2 or 4 more spaces to play with to see to it your product is correctly described and to play with the probability of a compound or multi-word tag to be used to search with.
All while keeping your total word count at a minimal level (my order is not correct so ignore that part)

Now using this search:
Fall Wreath Greens orange and browns
you get this result
https://www.etsy.com/search?q=Fall+Wreath+Greens+orange+and+browns&view_type=list&ship_to=ZZ
which on it’s own merits does not give a clear indication of what I am trying to say as your wreath is #2 out of 118 products listed.
And that was pure coincidence.
It could have just as easily been the result this product was in:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/111459306/beautiful-fallthanksgiving-burap-deco?ref=sr_list_18&ga_searc...
way down the list and that can be seen by looking at all the tags that had nothing to do with the product as listed. At least as compared to the search used to generate a list
No you can not predict what search will be used to find your product.
But the clearer you make the title and the more concise you make the tags, the higher the probability it will be that your product will be close to the front of some ones search used to find something like it.

I Think I did that right.

[KaylasKreationsTX]

Thanks for answering my question! Very interesting about how the matching of the number of search words and words in your titles and tags work. Thanks for your example of title and tags on my wreath. Very interesting how it all works. It is hard to know how to balance the wording in the title with the tags, but I will just keep practicing and experimenting with it. :) Thanks again for your help and your explanations!

[Former_Member]

Good Afternoon,

In need of some advise and help with tags and titles.

First off can anyone for certain tell me if tags and titles are considered intellectual property.

Any input would be appreciated. I have sent email to Etsy legal but have not received a response.

[Former_Member]

I guess this answer would come under the category of;
Any input.

Intellectual property defined.
1.
a work or invention that is the result of creativity, such as a manuscript or a design, to which one has rights and for which one may apply for a patent, copyright, trademark, etc.

I rather doubt that a title such as this one:
Typewriter Key Jewelry, Sentiment Jewelry, Name Jewelry

or this one:

Monogram Bracelet, A Little Victorian, A Little Steampunk, A Little Gothic - Diamond Cut Stainless Steel Chain

Is of itself unique enough or descriptive enough to satisfy the requirement of being able to patent, copy write or use as a trademark.

If fact it is hardly descriptive enough to define anything specific other than a broad genre of some time of something that may or may not be jewelry when read as a stand alone statement.

and tags are generic representation of alternative methods to define the description of something, a product in this case that represents synonyms, alternative spellings, colloquialisms, miss-spellings and language variations used by a search engine on those sites (such as Etsy) that require the use of them by a search engine used to find things.

Usually tags will have a series of well described limitations as to how they can be configured.

That does not mean the terms that were copyrighted for example that the writer has the authorization to use for their own purposes either in their title or tags as part of them, but the title or tag on it's own under most circumstances as I understand them will not meet the test.

This is my opinion as it stands and it seems to me there is some over thinking going on.

[Former_Member]

Thank you for your reply. I have been told my another shop owner I could not use certain tags and titles....ie. Dog Charm Bracelet...because they were her intellectual property. I was told by a SEO person tags and titles were not intellectual property. I deleted my bracelets because I was threatened by the shop owner to get legal involved. I emailed ETsy legal with the same question I am asking here but I have not gotten a response.

[Former_Member]

Here is a search for only the three words (Dog Charm Bracelet) and there are some 238 items with those three words used in the search field displayed.
Remember the search field is
Titles
and
Tags
It would require looking into the Tags on each individual listing to find where or how they are used. The titles will be displayed as a function of the search.

I fail to see a problem in calling something a
Dog Charm Bracelet
or
not
much of a problem unless some one has a copy-write on it or not and then it seems to me that using the symbol that represents a copywited word or not may be correct the that is a matter of opinion that would have to be verified, but a tag is just a collection of words pulled from the description to be used by a search engine to help locate what ever is in the site that needs to be found.

I stand with the original opinion, intellectual property needs to be more than a collection of words and a claim of implied importance.
The words dog charm bracelet
is hardly something of :

a work or invention that is the result of creativity, such as a manuscript or a design, to which one has rights and for which one may apply for a patent, copyright, trademark, etc.

That implies much in the way of creativity.
Ergo I think my response
might be something like:

I'm from Missouri, show me!

But again that is an opinion that implies some one is over-thinking just a bit.

[Former_Member]

Thank you for your reply, The shop owner said her bracelets were copyrighted and the tags and titles I was using were her intellectual property. Everone I have asked for advise from on this matter say tags and titles are not intellectual property but descriptions are.

Like I stated earlier, I have contacted Etsy legal to verify if they are or not, but no one has responded. Do you know if there is a way to contact them other than email!

[Former_Member]

Sorry, No. But they generally are good are responding eventually.