I have to laugh at search.

[CreeksideCraftwork]

I'm probably on the wrong board, but I can only define Etsy's laughable search as a technical issue.

For instance, I just designed and posted a cute little Santa cam Christmas ornament, and named it "Santa Cam Christmas Ornament". Then I went out to Etsy's home page and did a search for...you guessed it, "Santa Cam Christmas Ornament." Out of 3,298 results, I didn't actually expect to see my Santa cam, especially since I had posted it only moments before, but I did want to see what I was up against, so I scrolled through for a few minutes, then decided to do some sorting. I started by making sure all my filters were reset to "Any" in all categories, then I sorted by Most Recent.

Guess how many items came up? ONE, plus four ads--and one of those ads wasn't a Santa cam.

Then, those same 5 listings came up under Highest Price and again under Lowest Price. When I switched to Top Customer Reviews, the one ad that wasn't a Santa cam was switched out for another ad that isn't a Santa cam, and the other four items stayed the same. (Well, one is technically an elf cam. Close enough, I suppose.)

Then I decided to switch back to Relevancy, and the 3,298 results had dropped down to 911 (which is appropriate, since Etsy's search is on life support and needs 911.) In position #3 on the very top line, one is not a Santa cam (it's the same ad from Top Customer Reviews). Starting on row 4, every third row is filled with...not Santa cams.

What on earth is happening in Etsy's search department?!

Thanks for listening!

/rant

[weekendjewelry1]

I wish I could say gosh, how is this possible! Except...Etsy search. Yes.  I also wish I had words of wisdom or a fix. But... I got nothing. It's a crying shame, isn't it!

[CreeksideCraftwork]

Lol! It really is.

[ZenCatPottery]

Yup.  And if it’s this frustrating for us sellers who (mostly) know how to use the search filters, think how customers who don’t sell on Etsy must feel.  I can’t help but think that this will affect sales as customers search for less frustrating alternatives.

[CreeksideCraftwork]

Makes you wonder if that's exactly (partly) why Etsy is so slow right now. The economy, yes, but that can't be all of it. Reuters reported yesterday that shoppers spent a record number (in the billions) on holiday shopping, so we can't possibly blame the economy for all of Etsy's current problems.

[ZenCatPottery]

@CreeksideCraftwork  I have wondered the exact same thing.

[howtobooksandmore]

And how does Reuters know it is holiday shopping?  There are lots of things I have been buying lately that could be presents for others but are really things I need right now like a new camera, book, kitchen platter or chocolate assortment.  I have been putting off a lot of purchases lately and splurged a little when the items were on sale.  But if they include food and other everyday items in this figure then it could just be the sales making splurging a little more affordable.

[MouseGarden]

Somehow Etsy is recommending jewellery tags for knitting stitch markers, and at the bottom of the page where it says related category there is jewellery as well.  They are a craft tool.

Their new tag tool gave some very odd choices for some Christmas beads, including just about every Pokemon, even though that would be infringement.  It seemed to think they might be earrings.

Imagine if shoppers could search for something specific and actually get it.  They might stick around.

[Amaradorn]

@MouseGarden I think this is part of the AI listing associations thing maybe in conjunction with image recognition. It's obviously still learning. All my earrings have the 'gift for men' tag added by Etsy - I don't mind this as I don't care who wears my jewellery, but I did see some questionable items in another shop the other day with 'gift for baby' tags on them.

[FancyTogs]

So I opened a private browser window and searched for "Santa Cam Christmas Ornament", with standard "ships to UK" filter and UK localisation.

The first page is full of Santa Cam Christmas Ornaments, with 1599 results.

Switching to most recent, 1599 results, same for lowest price & highest price & top customer reviews. I was surprised by this as in previous test searches I would have seen a lot less results than relevancy.

Back to relevancy, every 3rd row is Ads. The Ads have not been strict keyword matching for about 10 years, and that is what I see.

Jumping to page 8 I still see a very high proportion of relevant santa cam ornaments on the page, with a few elf cams and other types of bauble in the Ads. I get to page 20 and the santa cams are there but thinning out, more other christmas tree decorations included and getting random other products (50 mint to be wedding favours, Electric Gate Farm property gate sign, confetti, tarot readings, etc) in organic results. The last full page, 42, still has a reasonable smattering of santa cam ornaments.

Lawrence

[howtobooksandmore]

When buyers get results like this, they stop using the Etsy search engine and use google or some other browser instead.  Guess who benefits from that.  Hint, it isn't the seller.  And there is no way of knowing how many sellers mis-tag or title their items, either deliberately or because they are new and don't understand how screwed up the Etsy suggestions really are and actually use them.  At one point, Etsy almost confessed that the ads had nothing to do with the search results and were just pulled randomly from the list of paid ads and then had so many of them in results that people stopped shopping for a while in disgust.  I think Etsy can only blame part of the drop in their bottom line on the economy and the rest is their own doing but it sounds good to the board of directors so they use it.

[aforagerscollective]

Explains the huge jump in offsite ad orders as of late. I'm convinced that their business model is not to make $ from actual sales, but to milk every seller for fees, offsite ads, & Etsy ads. And I believe they put shops in different 'tiers' before they shove them out the door or make them their 'pet' shop (pet shop = lowest prices, free shipping, buys ads, has sold over 10k).

[GroundZeroCreations]

One of the things that drives me nuts with Etsy search is seeing 16 ads per search page. Out of those 16 ads, many will not be remotely close to what your search is geared to find. Honestly, at times when I shop online, I find it so difficult to weed through the pages of garbage sites throw at you that I just go out and hunt for it in a brick and mortar store. It is actually quicker! That is a shame though because online shopping should be less time consuming and easier than physically doing it. So it is not only Etsy who has stupid search results, the internet is flooded with it from many, many sites. 

[Former_Member]

In an incognito window, location at US, I searched 'santa cam ornament' - there are now 3543 results. Switching to most recent, low/high price didn't change anything numbers-wise, it was still 3543 results. Of course the listings changed, and I expect results on recent/low/high to be rubbish as they are on eBay too.

If you were logged in when you searched, what you see was influenced by your behaviour in the past. The search I did had nothing to influence it since the AI had never 'met' me. It's the closest idea we've got to what search is 'supposed' to look like, but that search is only going to happen for someone who's very first time on Etsy is that search. Anyone looking for a santa cam is going to be influenced by what they've engaged with beforehand, and provided you have the right keywords, yours might be in the first row. If not the first half.

Search seems to be worse in the last few months, and it's definitely changed. For the first time these past 6-ish months I'm seeing radically different results between private and signed-in browsers. I've also noticed niche searches don't return as accurately as they used to - the other day I searched 'chunky rose quartz ring' and the AI ignored 'chunky' in favour of what it knows converts for 'rose quartz ring'. It expects a dedicated buyer to wade; actually it expects any buyer will to an extent. But as random as it often looks, we have to assume it's getting something right. Most of the sales on this site would come from searches, so Etsy would be on top of that, constantly.

The AI is in charge of optimizing itself, so I guess I'm saying trust the algorithm? Not a fun idea, but not worth losing your head over really - it is what it is, we cannot change it. All we can do is decide what keywords will bring us our customer. And if the income we get here matters, get some outside traffic.

[LoonLakeBookstore]

Our traffic from Etsy search this year is down 35% from last year, even though we have more items for sale than ever before.  I don't think it's any coincidence that our November revenue this year is down 50% from last November.

The other day I was standing in line at the post office, with a few Etsy packages to mail.  I got into a conversation with a lady in front of me and mentioned that I was mailing items I had sold on Etsy.  "I find that site hard to navigate" was one comment she made.

It's become difficult to sell on Etsy, because it's hard for buyers to shop on Etsy.  If you search for something and get a bunch of unrelated search results, it's discouraging for buyers. 

[CreeksideCraftwork]

@LoonLakeBookstore You got a key piece of feedback in that line that Etsy needs to take on board! "I find that site hard to navigate" should sound alarm bells at Etsy headquarters, especially when paired with the hundreds of complaints in the forums by sellers whose shops have gone from six-figure businesses to nothing this year.

[hopeandjoystudios]

I searched Santa cam ornament..I got 944 relevant ish items..a couple were Elf Camas a couple Santa trackers and a Santa list. I have no idea why some get such bad returns for the same search. Zero filtering. 

[DougsVintageStore]

I have this exact thing happen often, when I'm posting a vintage item that is rare. If I put the date in the search goes to another planet. LOL!

[DougsVintageStore]

LOL We should each post a weird item we have to sell and the rest of us will try and find it in the search. LOL!

[CreeksideCraftwork]

@dougs59Ha! That actually sounds kind of fun. Like an Etsy scavenger hunt. We should start a club. LOL!

[EightMileVintage]

I was just searching for a particular vintage chess set on Etsy. The initial "relevancy" search yielded 982 results. Sort for price and ZERO results. ZERO! Can you imagine how ticked off you'd be if you looked through 982 items and didn't find a single relevant one? Jeesh. Way to tick off buyers, Etsy.

[CreeksideCraftwork]

Reading the comments in this post makes me wonder if Etsy has a rogue server that isn't synced with the rest. Like, why are some people getting expected results while others are getting wacky results?

[artbyinky]

@CreeksideCraftwork maybe their location thing has something to do with it? Which really sucks because I don’t care where something comes from if it’s what I’m looking for, but now when I search it tends to show me “local” things. I’m happy to support local, but often it’s not relevant to what I’m looking for. 

[OrangeGroveBeads]

I did the Santa cam ornament search, for science, you know. I get 3524 results no matter how I sort, most expensive, least expensive, new, best reviews...always 3524. 

[CreeksideCraftwork]

@OrangeGroveBeadsWell, thank goodness search is working for somebody! LOL!