Here is a challange!

[Former_Member]

Today I am looking for padded cloth handles to slide over the handles of my cast iron frying pans. I have two of them, one with a 5 inch long handle that is 1 and 1/2 inches wide at it's widest point, the other frying pan has a handle that is 4 and 1/4 inches long and it is 1 and 1/8 inches wide. These handles of course protect my hand from heat while cooking.

How would you go about finding a pair of them (the handles) and from that information how would you go about listing them for sale if you were selling them and you would need a "Readable title" and logical tags.
Can you do that? So that they may be found using a search engine.?
yes this is a test!

[HardWearVintage]

I searched, "5" cloth frying pan handle protector" on google, The fourth sponsored listing is for a 5"x1.5" handle cover on etsy.

[Former_Member]

Interesting! You used "Google" as many people do and it while it did not give a particular store relating to that product, it gave a generic overview of
ETSY products that were from a variety of stores some of which were actually frying pan or Skillet handle covers, others of which were a variety of cooking utensils that had lids or covers.
The actual URL on Etsy was as follows:
https://www.etsy.com/market/pan_handle_covers

Running that same search on Etsy though gave the following;
https://www.etsy.com/search?q=5%22%20cloth%20frying%20pan%20handle%20protector
OR
We couldn't find any results for 5" cloth frying pan handle protector

There are a couple of things interesting here. One of which it is highly probable that Jim from HardWearVintage was unable to find anything on Etsy largely possibly because the products were not listed in a way that were easily found by searching on Etsy
And in addition
When Google found them, they did not relate to a single store but to a collage of similar items which included dissimilar items. . This would lead one to believe that the items on Etsy were not listed in a fashion that a google search would drive through to the store that offered them. Thus they would be hard to find again.
Thank you Jim.

[Former_Member]

I think also a valid point can be take here looking into a number products listed in Jim's Store it was interesting to read the titles such as this one:

Mickey Mouse Sweater Child's M 771

Is there any question as to what it is?
As to additional information as to what the product is looking at the tags, each of the tags individually add to the description of the product being listed as they SHOULD! Leaving the title short and readable, concise and accurate so a search using any combination of words to describe what would be looked for would describe to a "T" the products listed here.
Yet the title is also short, readable and accurate.

Clothing Women's Clothing Sweaters Ugly Christmas Christmas Sweater Ugly Christmas Sweater Ugly Sweater Jumper Tacky Sweater men women Disney red blue

When you look at the products and see how well and simply they are listed it almost makes sense that the sales volume is what it is. They can be found by some one looking for them, thus if they can be found they will be sold.

[Former_Member]

There is a lesson to be learned here!

[HardWearVintage]

Google tends to do a better job of finding things than the search function in most websites so I tend to use it out of habit more than anything.

Thanks for taking a look at my shop. Ugly Sweater sales have been particularly slow this year. I attribute about half of it to market saturation, but I'm also having more difficulty with placement in search results this year over past years.

Etsy's search algorithm is a fickle beast indeed!

[Former_Member]

That it is, and the fact that ETSY has gotten as large as it has does not help. With over 35,000 results for the basic search of "Ugly Sweaters" The probability of being anywhere near the beginning of a random search result is pretty close to zero % .
Things need to be very carefully listed with accurate description of the product using a minimum number of words in the combination of the Title and the tags to improve the odds of being seen.