Search Results not appearing even when searching My Shop

[AnewAgain]

Hello Fellow Shop Owners,

I have had several people tell me that when they search for items within my store, they cannot find them. I assumed it was something they were doing incorrectly until my neighbor showed me that when she searches for 'Marilyn' within my shop page, only 9 listings are returned. I have 34 active listings with 'Marilyn' in the Title, description, and keywords. I have tried this same search from multiple browsers and from incognito/privacy mode with the same result.  A large percentage of my listings are unsearchable.

I have been wondering why my sales and search traffic has fallen significantly over the past few months.  Now I know. A large amount of my listings are not being represented within Etsy search or My Shop Search.

If I search ONLY WITHIN MY SHOP, I should get anything and everything within my shop that matches the criteria. That search result is not competing with all other sellers on Etsy (which might drown my listing out).  If I have 10 items in my shop that are titled "This is a Necklace" and I search MY SHOP for "necklace", I should get 10 results, not 4.

There is a problem with how some (not all) of my listings are being indexed or skipped.  The Etsy help desk is only providing cut and paste canned responses about how search works.  

Hopefully someone else has encountered this issue and has figured out how to resolve.  Maybe we will be able to inform Etsy how to fix this then? 

As an example, try to find this listing anywhere in any search results Etsy provides...

Search Term: Lillian Russell
https://www.etsy.com/listing/881388812/signed-original-marilyn-monroe-as

Even going to my shop page and searching for "Lillian Russell", it doesn't get returned.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/AnewAgain

Thanks in advance,

Charles

[CappuccinoLace]

It's the word pinup.

Remove it and it'll be searchable.

*if someone searches lillian russell pinup it displays, but if they don't search with pinup, etsy excludes it. they do the same with the word sexy and panties

[AnewAgain]

Wow... just wow!

Do they have a published list of words that they don't like or is it just trial and error?

Thanks so much for the info CappuccinoLace !

[FancyTogs]

It is quite probably Etsy's automated XXX prude filter.

If you have any of the XXX trigger words in the title then the listing is hidden from normal search results. The listing is then only included in XXX searches, which are searches where the search query contains one of the XXX words (not necessarily the same XXX word as that in the listing title).

I think the idea is that listings with XXX content are only shown to buyers searching for XXX content.

So far my testing has indicated that Etsy only looks for the XXX trigger words in the listing title, not the tags. I have found that moving the trigger word to the tags allows the listing to be included in all searches, for both XXX and non-XXX queries.

There is seller speculation that image recognition is involved, however I suspect that may be confusion caused by the disconnect between the XXX trigger word in titles and the XXX trigger word in the search query.

Lawrence (Clare's other half)