Search Images Linking to Other Etsy Shops

[InspiredSeeker907]

Has anyone noticed search results of their images leading to other Etsy shops? Today for fun I typed my shop name into Google. I was happy to find results for my two most popular items but concerned when the item description was incorrect. When I clicked on each, the link led to different Etsy shops with sold out items. Maybe device specific? I used an Apple device when I looked but when I asked someone who uses an Android to check it out there was no issue. 

[cindylouwho2]

I assume you were searching Google Images? Even if not, both search & Images do pick up other images on a page, and may index your image & title from that other page. Google searches are personalized so you could easily see a different result on a different device. 

This has been happening for years, and there is not much you can do about it, other than have great Google SEO, so that Google shows your listing page first. 

[InspiredSeeker907]

Thank you, I appreciate your response. Yes, it was a Google image search. I can’t claim to know much about SEO but I did expect to see other shops similar products to appear in search results. I don’t see how it would benefit anyone, including Etsy, to have the wrong images attributed to a shop though. Confusing to buyers at the least. As a buyer I would expect when I click on an image of something I intend to buy to be directed to the product I was looking at for purchase not to an entirely different shops listing. I read several posts about recent increased traffic to shops sold out listings and others about decreased sales. Wondering if there could be a connection as something like this would result in increased visits to the wrong shop but not sales as it’s not what the buyer is trying to connect to. 

[cindylouwho2 · Accepted solution]

@InspiredSeeker907 It's Google, not Etsy. It's been going on for many, many years. It even happened to my Flickr account. 

The better your Google SEO is on a listing page, the less likely this is to happen, but if the other page has great SEO, you still might not see a direct link to you. 

No shoppers should expect products available for sale anywhere on Google other than Google Shopping. While Google Images does indicate if images are of products and are in stock, that is a fairly new development. A year or two ago Google tried to narrow down Images so that the photo they show is a main image on the linked page, but they are still not 100% at that. They may have had a glitch here lately; not sure since I only use Images to shop if I am absolutely desperate. 

[InspiredSeeker907]

Thank you for the further explanation. I’ve been selling on Etsy for two years now as a way to further my craft business, but there is still so much I don’t know, frankly some I just don’t understand, about e-commerce.