Listing not available more than 20 hours after submitting

[DigitalMelonGB]

Hi, I submitted a listing yesterday, approximately 20 hours ago.

The listing is this, it's a digital download Fantasy Thanksgiving Bingo.

After I submitted it I tried finding it in incognito by searching "Thanksgiving bingo" and I found it on page 3. But now I am not able to see it anymore. I tried 3 browsers on my computer (Windows) - Chrome incognito, Firefox, Edge. I also tried 2 browsers on my other computer (Mac) - Chrome incognito, Firefox. I also tried on my iPhone with Chrome. I tried searching only for the keyphrase "Thanksgiving Bingo", I tried "Fantasy Thanksgiving Bingo" as well as the FULL NAME of the listing, which is unique, especially given that it has the word "fantasy" in it, which does not exist in similar listings.

The only way I was able to see my listing in the search results was when I am logged in and search for the entire name, then it appears as a first result. But if I am not logged in - the listing doesn't show. 

I contacted the support - the support person was only able to see the listing after they opened the exact listing multiple times from a direct link and then searched for the full name. In no other way they were able to see it. They did not see the listing in Edge as well. They prompted me to write here.

I would really appreciate timely help, as I am working hard on creating Thanksgiving listings but if they are shadowbanned for unknown reasons it makes all my efforts useless, which is very frustrating.

Thank you!

[FancyTogs · Accepted solution]

For "Thanksgiving bingo" there are 1,990 results.

Why would you expect it to be at the front of search results?

I'm not seeing any great ranking factors in your shop. The shop is incomplete, it lacks legally required info, and there is no sales performance history. You don't even get the UK localisation boost because there is no shop location set.

When you are logged in, or logged out but using a normal browser window that saves cookies, Etsy tracks your search history and personalises your search results. If Etsy has shown you a listing, you have looked at it and not  bought it then you obviously didn't like it. Etsy will therefore demote that listing in your future search results.

Only use incognito / private browser windows for search testing.

Stop clicking on your own listings in search, by not buying you are reducing their ranking scores.

Fix your shop if you want better ranking:

https://www.etsy.com/legal/policy/search-advertisement-ranking-disclosures/899478564529

See "Customer & Market Experience Score".

Learn more about how search works:

https://www.etsy.com/seller-handbook/article/366469415790

https://www.ecreativeim.com/blog/index.php/2011/11/09/understanding-the-longtail-of-keywords/

Lawrence (Clare's other half)

[BagmakerSupply]

@FancyTogs: "Only use incognito / private browser windows for search testing." But remember than unless you are using a VPN Etsy still sees the same IP address as when you are logged in and therefore still has some knowledge of your search history.

[DigitalMelonGB]

@BagmakerSupply I did use VPN a few times to test for other UK IP addresses and also for USA, as this targets the USA market. I was not consistent with the VPN which is why I didn't mention it.

Also my phone did not use wifi when I tested for the first time since I was not even at home

I'm a web developer and I know how nasty tracking is so I aim to avoid/circumvent it when doing tests like that.

[LastCentury]

I just searched for "fantasy thanksgiving bingo download" and your item was on the first page.

Everyone will see something different.

Etsy seems to penalize incomplete shops. You have no location set, no About, no Profile, no Banner, a poor shop tag that repeats your shop name (it should state exactly what you sell instead) - all of this info is crawled by search engines.

US Thanksgiving is next week. You might want to focus on the next holiday.

Saying Thanksgiving 6 or 7 times in your tags is a waste of valuable space. Surely there are other descriptive tags you could use for that item.

[BagmakerSupply]

@DigitalMelonGB: 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 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 on page 1. Your listing may be appearing on page 251 and Etsy is only showing the first 250 pages to the world.

You can always confirm if your listing is indexed and available to be found in search by searching within your own shop.

Additionally you are in a very crowded niche - and factors like the shop's and listing's sales history probably carry a major weight in the search result calculations. You will most likely need to drive your own traffic and sales initially until the algorithm learns that people want your items.

[DigitalMelonGB · Accepted solution]

Thank you VERY MUCH everyone for all your suggestions. I will implement all the wisdom you gave me.

I think I wasn't very clear regarding my expectations so I would like to clarify: I was NOT expecting at all that my listing would end up amongst the first results or pages. I had 2 issues:
1. Even when I searched for the EXACT title did not get my listing as a result. Not only it did not show in the first pages but it did not show AT ALL in any page. This does not seem normal.
2. Yesterday after posting it I searched in incognito for "thanksgiving bingo" and I saw it on page 3. I do not claim that I deserve page 3 for that query, but now I did exactly the same search and I did not see it at all. So this means I did the same thing twice with the only difference being that those searches were 20h apart, yet the first time I was able to see it and the second time I was not able to see it in ANY page whatsoever.

IMPORTANT: I did multiple tests from different devices again and again by searching for the exact phrase in new incognito windows and on different browsers. I would like to say that even though the listing and shop are not optimised - the listing was indeed being shadowbanned.

How do I know this?

I did the following test:
1. I searched for "fantasy thanksgiving bingo" and I got 939 results. Keep in mind my listing is the ONLY one with the keyword "fantasy".
2. I got 20 pages, 12 rows per page, each row has 4 items. This is 20*12*4=960! This is more than 939 which means I should be able to see all results. @BagmakerSupply even if Etsy was limiting my results to the first N pages as you mentioned - based on this calculation I should be able to see all results within the first 20 pages.
3. I went through every single page and I did NOT see my listing.
4. I repeated the same thing on my other computer.
5. I repeated all of the above many times in the past hours.

Just few minutes ago during my last test I finally was able to see the listing when using the query above and it was on the first page! I did not change anything in my shop, and I tested exactly the same way, with the same keyword. On both my computers and on my phone I can now see the listing on the first page.

Your replies have been extremely useful for me to understand how the Etsy search works and what I could improve to put my listing higher in the results and I will definitely implement your suggestions.

Since my listing is not shadowbanned anymore as per my latest testing results - I will close this. Thank you again for all your input and I wish you success!

[FancyTogs]

The secret that we are all hiding from you is that actually Etsy search does not  work.

They have some very strange ideas about relevancy. Etsy are currently showing you everything else that their AI has decided that you really want.

Try switching search results from relevancy to lowest price. See if you can spot the difference!

Lawrence

[FancyTogs]

@FallenAngelBrass 

Absolutely a secret. The first rule of Etsy search is not to mention Etsy search.

Seriously, . . . Etsy are legally bound to explain how search works, they don't. They explain how search worked a couple of years ago and have not really updated their explanation properly since then, they gloss over the details with vague all encompassing buzzwords.

We know from our observations, and their boasting during the quarterly investors presentations, that:

• they are playing AI powered word association games to add irrelevant listing to relevancy results
• they are doing live personalisation of search results based on search history on Etsy and on other websites
• they are using image recognition to throw visually similar images into the relevancy results
• adverts have never used a strict "must include all query keywords"  relevancy, partial match has always been good enough
• Etsy are working on all sorts of freaky "Aunt Etsy knows best" search processing, because they showcase some of it in their CodeAsCraft blog.

For anybody that wants to be truly bamboozled by techno-babble buzzwords: https://www.etsy.com/codeascraft#

How they achieve stuff is all very impressive, but I worry that their base assumptions about what needs to be achieved are sometimes totally flawed.

Lawrence