It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

So in June many of us were upset by Etsy's meta-tag stuffing, and when upcoming changes were annouced, a lot more of us were thinking "what's that Lucy, a football for me to kick?" (Gilmore Girls reference)

And when our views vanished we were left floundering, frustrated, and wondering what happened. Many Etsy sellers threatened to jump ship, the forums were flooded with angry and upset sellers, myself one of them, but now, I believe the dust has settled and things are back on track. So much so that I am over a month backordered and I had to close down my low selling shops and just keep Etsy open. But I promised to do my Google experiment again, even though I knew the results would be off since my other shops are closed. But I still wanted to see how people are finding me.

So here goes. First I logged out of Google, and then I cleared my cache, browsing history, everything I could think of that would leave a trace on my computer. Not an exact science, but it helps. Then I did several searches. I searched for "pumpkin hat", "knit pumpkin hat", "pumpkin hat boston beanies", "apple hat", "knit apple hat", "apple hat boston beanies". I did all these searches without the quotes, and I only looked at the first 10 pages.

Here are the results:

"pumpkin hat" search
none of my items found

"knit pumpkin hat" search
Etsy-page 1 shopping guide
iCraft -page 2 shopping guide

"pumpkin hat boston beanies"
Etsy-page 1
1000Markets-page 1
Cosaverde-page 1, 2
iCraft-page 1
my blog-page 1
Artfire-page 2 (a review)
Shopping Guide had Etsy and iCraft

"apple hat"
1000Markets-page 6
CosaVerde-page 7

"knit apple hat"
iCraft-page 1 shopping guide
Etsy -page 1 shopping guide, and there was a link under another listing show more results from Etsy, I clicked that and there was my listing on page 1, but how many searchers are going to know to do that?
iCraft- page 4 (a different listing), page 9 another different listing
1000Markets- page 6

"apple hat Boston Beanies"
1000Markets-page 1
CosaVerde-page 1
Etsy-page 1
iCraft- page 1
Shopping Guide had Etsy and iCraft.

So what did I learn? I had no expectations for Artfire, 1000Markets, or iCraft to turn up in the searches. In fact it shows how on top keeping clean their listings Artfire is, as I recall my Artfire listings made it in pretty quickly into the searches last time. Also, Etsy and 1000Markets are now in the searches, in places that I can expect them to be, so this is GREAT news.

The only problem is that to be seen, shoppers have to enter terms like "knit" in order to narrow down some of their searches. I hope they know to do so, or they may be frustrated with their hits. But an Etsy product was always on page one, driving a customer to Etsy, and maybe that person will shop there and try and see what else is available and...

So make a good product, take great pictures, and use helpful, thoughtful tags, and the customers will find you.

The Great Watermelon Hunt

Etsy Admin Update 6/18/08 There will be changes to this once Etsy rolls out the updates and they get integrated in the search engines. I will run this experiment again. It took a while for my listings to get bumped off, it may take a while for them to reappear.
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Further using my watermelon hat as an example, I thought it was time to do a thorough search of google for my listings of my hat. I have it listed on several sites and with all the hoopla on Etsy, I wanted to see, in real time, how the other sites were holding up against each other for the who's on first listing.

First I cleared my cache, my browsing history and anything that could be lurking that could filter my search. And I logged out of Google.
Next I did a simple search in Google for "watermelon hat" without the quotes, thinking like a buyer, that they want a watermelon hat so that is what they would enter.

Here are the results:
Artfire: page 1 in the shopping results
Cosa Verde: page 5
iCraft: page 6

Other hits:
Twitter iCraft: page 14
my blog, previous post: page 14
iCraft (for a different listing): page 15
another blog: page 17

Note: My Etsy and My 1000Markets listings were not found

I stopped looking after page 50, forgive me. Now as with all experiments there are flaws, so let's point them out. First I did not look at all 79 pages (there may have been even more), and I may have missed a listing on the 50 pages that I did scroll through, but I believe I was looking pretty carefully. A few other Etsy shop's listings did appear, but not mine, and not near the number for sale on the site. Also, since this is my personal computer there might still be some residual memory that would muck up the page numbers a bit, but I don't think it would make a listing disappear. Also I am a new member to 1000Markets, so maybe they are slower to put up their listings, however my listings for Artfire and Cosa Verde are also new and they made it in somehow.

And it should be noted in an attempt to find my 1000Markets listing, I searched for my exact title listing "Watermelon Cotton Hat by Boston Beanies" and still I got nothing, so I am really puzzled by that. I checked my tags, and there are enough and not too many repeating words, so it really should come up.

And when I did the same search, "Watermelon Cotton Hat by Boston Beanies", a completly different listing on Etsy came up on page 1. It is like the Twilight Zone for those two sites.

So what did I learn? Well I know the average buyer will never scroll though 50 pages, I'm lucky if they look through 5. And that Etsy is not the only site having listing visibility problems. And it should be noted, I have been watching my Google Analytics very closly this past weekend, and will continue to do so for the next few weeks, and that while Etsy is still having listing visibility problems, somehow, I manage to get more Etsy hits than Artfire hits, despite being on page 1 with Artfire. And many more of these hits come from search engines. I will not jump the Etsy ship, but I am puzzled at where the leaks are.

So the mystery continues...