Several shops have this search indexing error…

[#1]

Hi. I discovered many months ago that some of my Etsy shops have certain items that are somewhat unsearchable. I say “somewhat” because they can be found in search only if the searcher uses ALL the words in the listing’s title. This is true whether I am searching all of Etsy, or just within my shop. I have four Etsy shops, and to varying degrees I have found the same issue in 3 of my shops. 

This listing, for example, is only findable when my shop is browsed, or if the shopper uses ALL 20+ title words in their search query. https://www.etsy.com/listing/1432942451

If you were to search my shop (or all of Etsy) with just “cramps shirt” then it wouldn’t be found. This search limitation seems to be true for 64 items in my shop. 

Similarly, if I search within my shop for the general term “shirt” then it gets only 1174 hits, even though my shop sells only shirts and I can see there are 1238 active listings. 

I have double checked that none of the poorly indexed items have any listing differences than the correctly indexed items (all have return policies set, and all use the same shipping profile, etc.) I also tried copying some of the affected listings (rather than renewing them), but the problem still continued with the copies. 

As I said, I discovered this many months ago. I waited for the indexing to correct, but it didn’t. Then I tried contacting Etsy, and when I finally spoke to someone, she said she’d have to escalate the matter, and that I should wait to be contacted. Weeks later, the “contact” was a boilerplate message about something completely unrelated. I of course responded to that to say my problem wasn’t resolved but no human ever replied. 

As I imagine many here know, this was infuriating (if an eyeroll can be considered Fury) since the last 2 fee hikes were supposed to have bought me some improved customer service. Even if Etsy has a legitimate reason for de-indexing certain items, the fact that they continue to take renewal fees for those items, without notifying me of the existence of—or reason for—the de-indexing of those items seems unethical. 

As with many concerns, I’ve given up on help from Etsy, and would like to ask if anyone else has experienced this type of search/partial-indexing issue? 

Also, would appreciate if you could tell me if you have the same result when searching within my shop for the listing that I previously showed as an example of the issue (https://www.etsy.com/listing/1432942451). It should come up just by searching my shop for the word ”Cramps” but seems to require ALL title words before a shop search will find it. 

And lastly, if you wouldn’t mind checking your own shop to see if the number of hits produced by any shop-specific search for any of your own common title or tag words is accurate. (You can easily check this by seeing if the number of search results in your shop search equals the number of hits for that same word when searching your active listings from within the shop manager.) 

Any help appreciated, 

Christian

[Miriboheme]

i often use the word "sexy" in my titles, tags, and/or descriptions...

[VibeEnvy]

@nineteen27 @cindylouwho2 

I have removed specifically the word and spelling "pinup" but left any instances where i had "pin up" with a space which i do have on most or all of these listings. This specific removal has fixed the listings. Only my bikini had the word sexy, the others had the word "pinup" the only keyword removed and is no longer restricting any of the listings (dia de los muertos shoes, rose stuff, cherry stuff) and they turn up fine.

I wonder if I should tell support I solved the problem myself, I would hate to think they were still (actually) trying to resolve my problem...

I removed sexy from all my bikinis and well anything that had the word, but for this issue, the problem keyword was "pinup" with no spaces. Etsy has a "pin-up and rockabilly" category and maybe "pin up" and "pin-up" to the bots is the fashion and aesthetic maybe "pinup" with no spaces is seen as some reference or related to sexy posters or pornagraphy or something since the other version of the word seem to have no restricting effect.

[Amaradorn]

@VibeEnvy That's great but just to play 'devil's advocate' - I wonder whether simply editing your listing was what fixed it rather than removing the 'offending' word??? I wonder what happens if you put the 'offending' word back in?? Or did you already try editing/republishing without removing anything?

[cindylouwho2]

@VibeEnvy the real problem with that solution is that some people will search those terms but will probably not find your item. There's no reason for them to be excluded in most jurisdictions. 

[VibeEnvy]

I know I'll potentially lose (the most direct, best and targeted) traffic for that most important word, but I'm sure the worse effect was getting no traffic for countless other keywords combinations.

And I now am worried having any restrictable items in a shop may have other unseen problems having my shop placed in some potentially offensive shop category in Etsys algorithm or something so I just am not going to touch any words that I can find causing trouble, I can't expect Etsy to fix the problem anyways.

[ReImagineBrewing]

My "Sex Toy Box" has never had this issue. The top key search terms all have "Sex" in them too.

My top selling listings do get blocked/searchable/not searchable overnight quite often. Several thousand sales to crickets and I can ID the day this occurs. It happens 7-10 days prior to a quarterly report. Then about a month later it starts showing up again and selling but 50-98% less YOY. It builds back up to about 30% less and then disappears again. Clockwork. A few never show back up leaving me a few thousand items in inventory...that are actually handmade not purchased blanks. Stinks.

[OneEyeCatStudio]

This is so underhanded.

Etsy is taking a seller's money for a listing ......  and then not giving the seller what they paid for by hiding the listing?

That is just not right.

[Madrigallery]

@OneEyeCatStudio totally agree. I feel like I was pickpocketed. And I can't imagine how many other sellers are paying listing and renewal fees for items that will never be searchable. 

[OneEyeCatStudio]

Weird though, that if you put 'sexy dress' into the search bar you get results.

So, are they trying to limit?

[WitticismsRus]

@Madrigallery 

You aren't alone. I have been dealing with it for months now. No idea when it started but it was last year or maybe earlier and I just didn't notice. Sales for what have been my bestsellers since we opened completely died. It took me a bit to figure out what was happening. Etsy support is completely useless and won't even acknowledge that it's happening. From what I gather it's basically anything even remotely adult themed. Lots of specific words like they just gathered a list of words and if your listing has one of those words in title or tag it's pretty much invisible unless someone searches for multiple words and the listing happens to have all of them. Hope that makes sense.  

[ReImagineBrewing]

This started in 2018 when they started the "Best Seller Badges". It isn't "Adult Themed" related, in my experience. It is an "If you got this badge be ready you might get frequency capped for doing great...we want you to pay for ads now to be seen". You won't have that item show up as a similar item or anything. You'll be told everything is fine. You are found by other search terms. 

Yeah, like I can really sell a car in a garage verses having it visible on the street. That is what happens.

I noticed this happen April 9/11 2022, Nov 2022, Feb 2023. My "best seller" going silent or 89%-100% down. Then suddenly it starts to show back up again building back up but only to 50-30% down. A few never have been seen again. So, 2k individual sales to 17 in a year to 5. In the past a similar item would still be selling. So, it wouldn't be an increase in competition, fad or any other excuse. It is an Algorithm or Frequency Capping or Relevancy Test to see how an item performs if found under other key words allowing other sellers to have listings show up instead for that item's top search terms.

Quite frustrating. You really can't do anything to impact it other than new listings or an additional shop. Then hope the item shows up. I've 100% duplicated listings too. 25% of the time it helps.

[CraftyCornishMaids]

@WitticismsRus 

I call it "the badge of doom"

it happens to a lot of bestsellers, they are completely removed from their bestselling search terms, not further down in search, but completely removed.

I have had them put back, after about a week of badgering, only for them to be dropped again a bit later,

you have to be on it all the time

cindylou did a blog about it

@onedaysgracenz  this is another one

[WitticismsRus]

@CraftyCornishMaids  @ReImagineBrewing 

Yeah, I'm not talking about the best seller badge. I have never had one of those on these items I'm referring to. I just meant that they were some of our shops best sellers. I didn't mean they had a bestseller badge. It's most definitely about adult themed or mature listings or items that are having the issue. There have been other threads about the issue. 

[onedaysgracenz]

@WitticismsRus  - It has become noticeable as a "program" now, I agree. Some sellers like you have been seeing it for a while (perhaps there was a test phase), but it seems Etsy has now settled on how it will work and so the types of listing pages affected is pretty much site-wide now.

Looks like Etsy has reached a point in compiling whatever "list" of data factors will be included in this program, and is  applying it to all listings that meet that criteria. It appears it is more than "just" keyword criteria, so I doubt the full extent of this decision to separate visibility of mature content has been seen just yet.

So far it isn't possible to determine whether it just applies to listing pages detected in a site-wide bot sweep, or whether it also means shops that carry even one of the impacted listings are tagged in a way that means all their new product pages are "scanned" at the time they are uploaded from then on.

Two sellers I know who have been affected by re-catgorization have uploaded brand new product listings with no such keyword references at all but with the same images that could be interpreted by viewers as "mature" if that's what they were looking for (one clothing, one art). Those listings have quickly been re-categorized as "mature" without keywords being the reason.

The forum I belong to has a couple of volunteers who are creating brand new listing pages with some potential keywords left in the listing, but bland non-mature images. A couple of others are doing the same thing by creating images with only possibly sensitive keywords in the tags but not in the images or description. These volunteers are all US shops that have had at least one product re-categorized this year.

Looks like there may be a couple of other product categorization changes coming too, apart from mature content.

As a side note, there doesn't appear to be any impact at all on star seller status or badge when this re-categorization occurs.

[WitticismsRus]

@onedaysgracenz 

yeah, there is definitely something going on. Oddly it isn't happening to my listings that are actually tagged mature and have the first photo censored due to profanity. It's other random listings that may have an adult theme specifically bdsm or anything related to bdsm but the profanity that they require to be censored and marked mature are fine. Same goes for much of our inappropriate adult sexual humor, those listings are fine and found in search at least when I have tried searching a few. None of it makes much sense.

[onedaysgracenz]

@WitticismsRus  - that what I mean when I said it appears it isn't a keyword issue. There are other factors about listing pages involved.

Of course Etsy uses keywords too, that's how the "first sort" in relevancy works.

After the first sort, the "second sort" (as Etsy calls it) relates to other factors, not keywords to the same extent or in the same way that the first sort does.

It seems at this stage that it is the "second sort" where this new program is being applied to "catch" such listings, which are then re-categorized.

Consequently listings that have specific keywords such as "sexy" won't be re-categorized UNLESS they also have other data factors too.

So SOME listings with "sexy" in them will be re-categorized and SOME won't. For mature content, it's not just about keywords.

This is new generation AI at work. Not the simple stuff of keyword matching.

On Etsy, sellers are very focused on keywords - have been for years. I think it is difficult for some to understand that AI has advanced way beyond that type of simple formula. Word matching is only a crude "first sort" algorithm feature for AI programming now.

The only part of ranking (sorting) that a seller has control over is the keywords they put in listings that are used by Etsy in the "first sort" process. That process assess whether listings have any relevance to the search query at all, in any way. Keywords are used to decide that very limited scope of sorting through the millions of listings in this site.

After that point, a seller has very little (if any) control over any part of the sorting process as far as keywords use goes. That cannot be changed, circumvented or worked-around - it is how the entire system works. Sellers focused on keywords as their primary concern when listing products will have a lot of trouble taking this on board.

Of course there are ways that sellers can have some say in where and how their listings appear. But do understand that, the "obsession" with keywords has to be changed, so that other ways of thinking about listing products can be considered.

Sellers can't control every aspect of ranking anywhere. Even in their own website, listings are subject to Google or other search systems ways of ranking for visibility.

Seems while Etsy was late to the party in using AI at all in this site, they have now well and truly caught up with the other party-goers.

[Signe60]

Hmmmmm.....it does make you wonder what other words etsy are dreaming up..to stop us being seen!! there's us thinking that little to no sales are due to the economy, when it could be this kind of shenanigans going on behind the scenes.

[nineteen27]

@Madrigallery 

just a quick update.

i took the word *sexy* out of the title and tags on my vintage bettie page items and 2 of them sold within an hour of doing that.

they had been sitting in my shop for at least 9 months.

with me not knowing that they were invisible for the search term *bettie page*

so i appreciate your post and i hope it helps others {and you!} for figuring it out.

[Madrigallery]

@nineteen27 that's amazing, thanks for letting me know. 

[GhostTeeAndDeadMeat]

Hello Christian, I just checked and indeed no listing of your two shops appears when I do a search. Alex GhostTeeAnd DeadMeat.

[CastawayCottageFinds]

Hi Christian  I didn't do any searching in your shop, I was too taken by reading your about section and visualizing the whole scene with your mom. I love your hair, just be who you are and if someone has to be mean, feel sorry for them, they must just be unhappy. The question I have is how on earth do you find the time to do all you're doing, all the shops with amazing listings. And are you restoring your newly acquired mansion? I did that once to a big old house and that alone is a full time job. The energy gene must have bit you big time to do all you do. Good luck and I hope that Etsy stops their shenanigans and lets your things be seen organically instead of being manipulated like they seem to do. 

[Former_Member]

Takes me back to working on my old '69 Beetle with a standard US tool kit... yep, they're tools, but nothing fits.

*Flips open thesaurus (which I thought was a sort of dinosaur when I was a kid)***  Provocative, Sensual, Seductive, Racy, Titillating, Flirtatious...

Surely, they can't all be on Etsy's FUBAR list - but I guess you never know as now they have AI which can read better than most Etsy employees (that's just a guess on my part).   

[cindylouwho2]

This reminds me of when I worked at the Federal Court of Canada, and one of my personal email addresses was blocked by the court's email system. I had a free email at [lastname]@baldandsexy.com (yes, I shave my head). I told the IT guy that the court heard cases on sexual harassment and sex discrimination, so maybe a complete ban wasn't a great idea LOL

I do think this is about trying to make sure certain types of items aren't shown in certain jurisdictions where they may be illegal to advertise or sell, and as usual, Etsy has done their standard poor job of programming it.
Another good example is the plant ban. Plenty of shops were caught by that one, and some probably still do not know. There's a seed shop here in Canada that I could not buy from due to that lousy programming; fortunately they have a website where I had no issues. 

[OneEyeCatStudio]

Well, there are a 'ell of a lot less dirty panties listed here than there used to be.

[Amaradorn]

@OneEyeCatStudio Is there though?? I daren't even test that one.