Major changes to Amazon search engine?
Has anyone else noted major changes in the last few days, in my area as follows:
-
Searches using the correct EAN number in the general customer search area of Amazon in many cases no longer links to the product (my success rate for the past few days has been around 50/50 it used to be nearly total).
-
Searching under ‘CD/Vinyl’ now brings up a host of streaming/download options also, this wasn’t happening before.
-
The drop seller established duplicate pages are now starting to hide the legitmate product pages. Please see the following link as an example: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tchaikovsky-Nutcracker-Capriccio-Polonaise-Philharmonic/dp/B01M6AFVIB/ref=sr_1_19?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1547248462&sr=1-19&keywords=tchaikovsky+pentatone
If you click on the tiny ‘see all two formats and pages’ link only then will you discover the legitmate product page. Many potential customers will never find it naturally. I’m of course aware of the existence of all these thousands of duplicate pages but previously, at least in my searches, they have always appeared a long way down the list after the legitimate pages, OR they are taking advantage of the fact that the general search terms likely to be entered by a customer don’t link to the legitimate page. That isn’t the case here.
Does any of this chime with any of you?
25 replies
Seller_DROodOAYHftnc
Yes, same with books and has been for ages, so no change in search engine that am aware of - basically absolutely rubbish !
In books the rogue duplicates nearly always are displayed first in the results and the true, correct listings are hidden behind the multiple other format little grey triangles - and how many buyers even look there ?
What you are experiencing is certainly not new.
Seller_aM6EyM3iNnXkL
Pure and simple…Amazon want Adword money and it will all boil down to the highest click bidder getting the perspective customer.
Have a good weekend all
Lee 
Seller_LKjg1QRrO36Yq
Yes, GlobalStore are one of the worst offenders in the duplicate media scam. Their feedback is also manipulated with the addition of loads of fake positives (see -)
https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/forums/t/feedback-manipulation-vol-3/178498/247
The search engine does seem to be getting worse, if that’s possible.
I was out the other day and wanted to buy a pair of headphones that I saw in a shop. I tried checking the reviews on the Amazon website via my (not very) smart phone and it was a real trial trying to find the matching product on Amazon.
Even though I specified the exact make + model number it threw up a whole page of different products on the first page of results.
Similarly, I looked up a camera (exact make + model number ) and it returned several pages of generic camera accessories before giving the correct result.
I’ve long known the book and media catalogue search engine to be is a shambles, but it seems to be right across the board now.
BMVD should be the easiest catalogue to search, given that almost all legitimate produsts have unique official identifiers in the form of ISBNs and EANs, but that hasn’t stopped Amazon allowing it to be overun with rogue duplicates.
In recent times, Amazon has increasingly given the appearance of being a rudderless ship.The big boss JB currently has a lot of other problems on his mind but in terms of user-friendliness, the site has been going downhill for a long time.
Seller_ugiIC6Uads3Rv
I’ve submitted a merge request, so I’m sorry that your example will look wrong shortly (always assuming they do take the sensible action). But yes, there is a ludicrous amount of gaming the search facility going on…
Seller_1vyLJePYDN9hf
Yes, I’ve got problems too - loads of my products rendered effectively invisible. Even lots of recent releases disappearing. I started a separate thread on this:
https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/forums/t/disappearing-cds-even-new-recent-releases-anyone-elses-listings-becoming-invisible/182925
Seller_1vyLJePYDN9hf
PS. I have asked “seller support” what is going on with this. As always when you ask them something that needs more than a robotic response, they have “passed it on to the relevant department” and promised to get back to me as soon as possible. That was three days ago already…
I guess the questions are: is Amazon doing this to push digital music and kill the cd or are the drop-shipper / rogue listers behind it? And, more importantly, will we see these absurd changes reverted?
Seller_1vyLJePYDN9hf
As far as I can tell at the moment, searching by barcode for a cd is simply not working. Unbelievable!
Seller_1vyLJePYDN9hf
Heck of a lot of invisible products. Surely this is going to annoy the big sellers as much as it is annoying me when they notice it? Search, for example, “Amadeus Quartet Complete Recordings”. That comes up in my Chrome browser as a suggestion as soon as I have typed “Amadeus Qu”, but the set itself I cannot find, i.e. could not buy from any seller on Amazon if I wanted to. I don’t see how that’s good news or profitable for Amazon on any level.
Seller_tj5bg90i9gyCk
Yes, as I’ve said on another discussion thread, I’m experiencing exactly the same problems and have had fruitless Chat sessions and phone calls with Seller Support in the last 48 hours. They all claim they are not aware of any issues with the catalogue or the search engine, and say they haven’t had any other similar complaints from sellers or other customers. I have raised a couple of cases and don’t expect any kind of resolution.
Most of the CD products in my inventory seem to have become invisible to customers in the last few days (not just my offerings, but the actual products themselves). The product details pages can be accessed via my inventory, so they still exist somewhere in some kind of database, but they are no longer capable of being accessed by customers on the live Amazon site searching for CDs. Searches by ‘All Departments’ or ‘CDs & Vinyl’ using the composer name, or part of the title, the EAN barcode, even the ASIN itself, yield zero results.
Has their system been sabotaged, or is this a deliberate decision to suppress CDs in favour of MP3 downloads and digital content? The latter makes no business sense, given the millions of people who still want to buy CDs! Why turn away millions of customers?
