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]

@Amaradorn test it at your peril! you'll have nothing but dirty panties on your homepage feed from now until the apocalypse!

[PlatypusDream]

@OneEyeCatStudio 

But have you searched "used pannies"?

[ZCreateDesign]

I'm having this same exact issue but without any mature words! "Place Cards" and "Champagne" and "Shelf" but only for some items and some words, it's a mess but the listings with the problems are best sellers that suddenly stopped selling. 

[cindylouwho2]

@ZCreateDesign that could be frequency capping. 

[ZCreateDesign]

@cindylouwho2 I would agree, but the same inconsistency is happeningusing the skus I have in the titles. There couldn’t a be cap on a unique sku? Also, why would this be happeningnow so drastically if frequency capping has been going on for years? And lastly, what about the shops who have hundreds of sales a day consistently? Just trying to understand. 

[cindylouwho2]

@ZCreateDesign the algorithm doesn't necessarily separate out SKUs as something it should treat differently. 

Frequency capping has varied over time. 

Many shops do not rely on Etsy search for the bulk of their sales, so they end up with more consistent selling patterns. Do your items sell well through Offside Ads? 

Please note that I am not saying that your issue is definitely frequency capping. It is important to consider all options, though, as sometimes reported issues end up being a combination of factors. 

[ZCreateDesign]

@cindylouwho2 hmm that’s so confusing.We do well with offsite ads, but the ebbs and flows have gotten quite drastic across the board. Seeing entire keywords not working out of the blue is definitely discouraging.

[Signe60]

Try 'wine glass wall holders' instead of Champagne as the front word on the title. I had a look at that search...and I didn't see your glass holders there on the first few pages that I looked. Most of the listings in that search had the words wine, or holder near the front of their titles.

[ReImagineBrewing]

Welcome to my world and I don't buy pre-made items nor dropship at all. Everything is made from scratch. So, I have a ton of lumber sitting, another order I have to cancel and a ton of items we made sitting in inventory.

Opening another shop is the only option I've seen that seems to work but haven't tried it. I'm opting for Faire. I'd suggest not using the sku in titles either. It is easy to find items across multiple shops that way. Or something that could be programmed into an algorithm...but can Etsy Tech handle that... One company that dropships for a lot of Etsy shops had customers put in the sku in the titles. The seller didn't design nor make the items, just sent an order to the drop shipper. It took awhile but you can tell the shops don't do it anymore, but you can still ID them because the same item with the same personalization shows up with different backgrounds and without the SKU.

Etsy also claims they use their similar image technology now. So, the same item in multiple shops ends up showing up, thus less variety for the customer to see...I'm not sure if Etsy will finally figure out how not to have the same item pop up from multiple shops, but if that happens then opening another shop might not work.

It Stinks having sales suddenly drop to 50-89% down. It isn't the economy when the site overall is holding strong...I think it is related to the "best seller badge" kiss of death... Also, the ability of overseas sellers to be able to get orders to the US in a timely manor for less than it costs to ship next door in the US. US sellers just can't compete and more US sellers then dropship from overseas to survive and handcrafted goes away.

[nineteen27]

@cindylouwho2 

cindy... in case you are gathering info...

i have a shopify site and i have been selling *champagne* colored beads for years.

but in the past few weeks... shopify has been excluding my *champagne* colored beads from being added to the shopify shop app.

i had to remove that word. 

 they probably think i am trying to sell alcohol.

so it is possible etsy is doing the same thing.

[CuriosAnCollectibles]

I think there's always been issues with certain items/words not showing up in search. Maybe it would be good if Etsy were to publish a list of words that shouldn't be used. 

Didn't they do that years back? Or it could be a figment of my imagination. 

[ZCreateDesign]

I don’t think “place cards” is a banned keyword

[nineteen27]

@ZCreateDesign 

i did a quick peek at your shop and etsy has been removing plaques that include artists names... titles of songs... and lyrics.

those things are someone elses intellectual property and it is infringement.

you are allowing your customers to choose whatever they want on them.

i know you understand what copyright is based on your statement of taking legal action against anyone who infringes on yours.

[onedaysgracenz]

@ZCreateDesign  - Champagne is a protected word, so it could well be included in Etsy's move against IP infringement that is currently underway. The word has different levels of protection in different parts of the world.

This is one of those words that has fallen into common usage, including describing a color, but it is actually protected. This is exactly the sort of word where Etsy has previously just done a broad sweep site-wide which has caused a lot of impact on listings that aren't mis-using the word.

So far it seems the way Etsy sees it doesn't include the use of the word as a color, but does include its use to describe anything that could be remotely connected with the wine - such as holders, images, art, embroidery, etc.

It could well be in test phase, because like you say, many such listings with this word in them and at least a vague reference to the wine are coming and going from visibility currently.

[ZCreateDesign]

Mostly concernedabout “place cards”

[cindylouwho2]

For those in this thread whose items are completely unsearchable (or almost), if you can figure out the trigger terms, there may be a solution here: https://community.etsy.com/t5/Managing-Your-Shop/Suddenly-restricted-due-to-mature-content/m-p/14177... 

Turns out I have 2 unsearchable items myself LOL

[ZCreateDesign]

@cindylouwho2 Unfortunately, this is not what's wrong in my shop. My hot selling items have been completely removed from search but only for hot keywords. I have identified even more listings the past few days. And they are not mature content. "Place Cards" "Seating Chart" "Butterfly" "Name Tags" "Champagne Shelf" (I know someone said 'champagne' is protected, but even "Shelf" is not pulling them up and I can't imagine that Etsy is under pressure to remove champagne. I did take it out just in case.) 

OH BUT THE KICKER - I can't even run ads on these listings! I turn ads on them and NOTHING gets spent. Normally my ad dollars get spent in minutes. I am VERY GOOD at SEO and my listings hence why we have done so well the past 12 years. This is not an SEO problem, not a frequency capping (because then I could at least run ads). This is 100% either a bug in search, or someone did something to my shop on the backend. Also, any theories about revenue capping, etc. that doesn't fly because there ARE shops selling hundreds of items a day, every day, for years.

Any ideas? WHAT DO I DO? Who did I piss off? What is my next step?

Copying the listings doesn't work. Creating new ones doesn't work. I'm banned from my best selling categories for some unknown reason, without notice, without help. We have high overhead since we've adapted to a normally high volume of sales, so we can only keep up like this for so long.

I'm at a loss.

[cindylouwho2]

@ZCreateDesign Only items with decent quality scores will do well in competitive searches/ads, and an item that has been frequency capped tends to lose its quality score. And items that then get out of frequency capping often don't bounce back - I had one like that. Your issue is more likely in this area, if you can't figure out "forbidden" words. 

If instead it is one of the many ways Etsy is removing items from certain searches for other reasons, the only thing you can do is figure out the issue and demonstrate it to Etsy. Since you have not been specific about which listing is affected with which keyword, no one can help you here. 

[ZCreateDesign]

Oh I thought you were gathering data on the problem lol it’s hundreds of listings, sadly. I’m emailing support daily. Not getting responses anymore. 

[cindylouwho2]

@ZCreateDesign I am gathering data on multiple issues right now, and since I also have to sell stuff to make a living, I don't have time to go through hundreds of listing for someone. I need a specific example or your data is worthless to me. 

Even though Etsy Support does get paid for this, they are also unlikely to help with this type of issue if the case cannot be made clearly and concisely with examples. 

[ZCreateDesign]

Oh lol if you want specifics just let me know as I have tons of data on this issue if anything is helpful to you

[ZCreateDesign]

I am giving specific examples to support since they are paid of course, I don’t know what’s gotten confused here sorry

[cindylouwho2]

Wanted to draw everyone's attention to the transparency report: https://storage.googleapis.com/etsy-extfiles-prod/Press/Etsy_2022_Transparency_Report.pdf 

page 5: “That’s why, in 2022, we developed a mature content classifier which identifies potentially mature listings using text and image recognition. Using this technology, we work to keep these kinds of items from being displayed to users who aren't looking for them, while still allowing those who are to find them. While no technology is perfect and we may sometimes get it wrong, we’ve seen a 17% decrease in flags of mature content from our member community since adding this classifier to our search experience.”

As with the other technological "policing" of the site, they are massively overreaching and removing many things that aren't an issue. However, mature item sellers should seriously take this as a warning that their reach will continue to decrease here. Start making other plans now!