Foreign shop listings not showing only for US searches

[ProfondoRossoVintage]

Using a VPN with a US server, my husband (who runs a different shop from mine) discovered last week that suddenly his three top selling items do not show up in any US searches even with shipping filtered from only here in Italy. This is not an issue of buried listings, as there is only one page or less of items when filtering searches. When you do a search from other countries outside the US, the listings show on the first page since they have hundreds of sales each. Etsy support has been little to no help, and only suggests the things we've already done i.e. renew listings, reset shipping profiles, etc. This is definitely a technical issue considering that all other listings for his shop show up in searches and those are connected to the same shipping profile as the listings that no longer show up despite being his top sellers. His shop is not new and this is the first time he's seeing a problem like this after 5 years. 

Anyone else noticing the same issue? There is a similar post about foreign shops under the Marketing section of the forums, which I replied to, but thought this needed more visibility as a technical issue since we've exhausted all ways of fixing this on our own.

[CraftyCornishMaids]

If it really isn't showing up

Etsy often frequency caps best sellers

They normally come back after a month or two, when their sales drop

most etsy support staff don't know this, it took them 6 months to confirm they did this, and then they added it to the ranking disclosure

• Frequency Capping: to limit the number of times the same listing or shop appears at the top of results for a specific user or keyword.

........

The other thing could be it's just not showing it to you

Without looking at the shop and listings itself, we can't do any checking for you - maybe your husband should post here, so we can see.

[ProfondoRossoVintage]

While I appreciate the information on Frequency Capping, that doesn't make much sense, since this has never happened in the span of 5 years with consistent sales throughout that time. Additionally, as I said in the post, these are completely missing from US searches, but available on the first page in other countries. The Frequency Capping basically buries the listings, not removes them completely and I don't think it's only for US based searches, so again, it doesn't seem to apply to this particular issue.

We've had friends from the US also check and the listings are indeed not there.

[CraftyCornishMaids]

@ProfondoRossoVintage 

The frequency capping happened to me, after 9 years of selling it here

It 100% remove it completely for that search term.

Which etsy did eventually admit to

CindyLou did a blog on it about 5 years ago

Unfortunately all the posts about it here have been removed

.... fortunately, after testing this, I can see it's not frequency capped.

[Amaradorn]

Etsy doesn't like VPNs.

Why don't you post one of the listings here and ask US people to search for it.

Post the url and the full listing title.

Do it this evening when the US folks are online.

Also it might depend what the listing is for - some items are blocked in different countries.

[ProfondoRossoVintage]

If any US based users come in, I'm leaving information for his top selling item below. Linking to it directly makes no sense since it defeats the purpose of checking specifically in searches. Please be sure to filter using "shipping from Italy" to avoid having to go through pages of other similar items.

Title: Necronomicon Book of the Dead

Shop: CrisandJack Creations

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions and help with this!

[CraftyCornishMaids]

I set myself up as USA, and searched 

Necronomicon Book of the Dead

there were over a thousand, shipping to USA, yours was was second, on the 1st line of non-adverts

I changed it to ships from Italy to USA, and there were 28 listings, yours was first (there were no ads)

I was using chrome, incognito

[ProfondoRossoVintage]

@CraftyCornishMaids Thanks for checking! We'll have our US friends check again this evening. 

[CraftyCornishMaids]

I would test it yourself, not using VPN

[FallenAngelBrass]

@ProfondoRossoVintage 

If you're asking the same US users to search again and again, the algorithm likely has de-prioritized your listing for them.  Searching again and again but not buying a product tells the algo that the buyer doesn't want that listing and to please show others instead.  

See my search results below.  

[ProfondoRossoVintage]

@CraftyCornishMaids The Frequency Capping is very ridiculous and defeating for those who are successful on the platform. Not sure if that's what's going on here since you were able to locate the listing, but it's something I'm keeping in mind. Thanks again for the info!

[AnnaleasFinest]

@ProfondoRossoVintage 

yes, it is manipulation, and it means Etsy can sabotage any shop they want to. 

Do you have your own website, FB fanpage, etc?

Maybe you could post your bestsellers there? 

[ProfondoRossoVintage]

@CraftyCornishMaids I would have to use a VPN since we're in Italy. The listing shows up for other countries. The problem is specifically US searches.

[FallenAngelBrass]

I'm in New York.  Searching "Necronomicon Book of the Dead," your listing comes up for me in the top row (right below the ad row) on the first page.

I would never filter for Italy and not sure why anyone in the US would use such a filter unless the product is specifically Italy related.  Don't you want to check the results that typical US buyers would get?  

[ProfondoRossoVintage]

@FallenAngelBrass Thanks for the response. Since the listing wasn't showing up in filtered searches, we knew it was not showing up in basic searches and we were only trying to ease the burden of having someone try and search through tons of listings. Did you try without the filter, by chance to see if the book shows up?

[FallenAngelBrass]

I just wrote "Necronomicon Book of the Dead" in the search bar and your listing came right up.  Top row on the first page. 

No filters, nothing. 

Just my armchair internet experience, but it seems that many platforms are catching on to the VPN gambit.  They don't seem to be as stealth as they once might have been. Perhaps Etsy has ways of knowing where a searcher really is and shows search results accordingly?   I dunno, but I am really and truly in New York and your book comes right up for me. 

[ProfondoRossoVintage]

@FallenAngelBrass No, we did not ask anyone to do multiple searches. When we realized the listings weren't showing, we did our own test using a VPN and then asked our US friends to try. We only noticed it this week.

[ProfondoRossoVintage]

@FallenAngelBrass At least a couple of you have been able to see the listing! We still don't see it on our end with a VPN from various parts of the US, so we'll have to see if anyone else who actually lives in the US has better luck. It's a very strange issue, but at least we're getting more help here than we have with support this past week! Thanks again.

[FallenAngelBrass]

Happy to help.

It's 6:45am here on the east coast on a Saturday, so most of the US is still sleeping right now.  As we wake up (we have 6 times zones across our 50 states) more US sellers will likely chip in with their search results for you. 

[Jentronix]

I'm in USA... with No filters selected your item came in 6th on the first page of mobile Etsy app.

Hope that helps

[ProfondoRossoVintage]

Thanks again to all of you who have kindly helped check this out. It seems that the listings are now showing up at least intermittently, even when we check using the VPN from certain areas of the US. Someone just placed an order for one of the other listings that weren't appearing, so that's a step in the right direction. I wouldn't call it solved just yet since we're still watching the statistics for visits to see if at least that goes back to normal, but we're hopeful that the issue is possibly resolving itself somehow. I'll continue to monitor the situation and this post for anyone else who may want to respond.

[BagmakerSupply]

@ProfondoRossoVintage : "Using a VPN with a US server ..." Hiding behind a VPN, using incognito mode, and / or not being logged in do not prevent a website from identifying the visitor as you.

Keep in mind that if everyone on this forum searched for the exact same phrase they would all get different results. Because of "personalized searches" you can NOT rely on anyone's search results - particularly your own - to define how your listing is ranked. There are many many factors that affect listing placement and the relative weight of each factor probably changes constantly. Even exact word matches to your title no longer ensure that you will appear in search.

As others have pointed out, when the algorithm keeps seeing that you are not purchasing the items it shows you it will eventually stop showing them to you. Continually searching for your own items hurts not just your search results but probably organic search ranking overall (i.e. 'I showed this item to 100 people in the United States and not one of them purchased it so I am going to reduce the visibility to US shoppers').