Why is search on Amazon so bad?

Question

I have noticed in the last couple of years that search results on Amazon have become horrendous.Often I am looking for highly specific items, and Amazon will recommend many items that have nothing to do with them in the first ten results.For example, I have just looked into "weightlifting shoes" and the THIRD result was a cycling shoe.This is in the Spanish store. After checking the American store, results are slightly better (the Spanish store is truly atrocious), but there are many bad results within the first twenty or so results.Does anyone know why this is happening?

notreallyserio · Accepted Answer

I don't know the answer but I'd be surprised if it wasn't mostly a garbage-in, garbage-out problem.
Old school SEO techniques dominate Amazon, things like overly long and descriptive titles. Even legitimate brands look like scams, presumably because they're trying to fight back against scammers.
For example, compare the titles on Amazon's and Walmart's listings for a comparable LG 80 series TV: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08WHRW6QR vs https://www.walmart.com/ip/LG-55-4K-UHD-80-Series-Smart-TV-w...
But the worst, by far, is Amazon showing multiple distinct items on the same page, as though they are merely variants. I don't have any ready examples, but think things like USB memory card breakout devices on the same listing as USB cables. That's got to break search in a lot of weird ways. And I don't care if it is a 3rd party seller problem, that doesn't excuse anything.

34679 · Answer

I assume it's the online equivalent of arranging a store in such a way that your customers have to walk by as many potential impulse-buys as possible.

vanilla-almond · Answer

Why is search on Amazon so bad?Search is poor on the Amazon UK site too. I often fail to find a book that is old or out-of-print using Amazon's search. Or I try to search for a particular brand and model. I then turn to a Google search for the exact title + author (or brand + model). Google's search results display the correct Amazon entry at the top or near the top of the search results. In other words, Google does a better job at finding products on Amazon that Amazon's own search feature.I can only assume that Amazon has simply so much stock that they can no longer categorise many products correctly. Or they simply don't care.Also, Amazon is flooded with 'drop-shippers' desperate to inflate their search ranking on Amazon. YouTube is stuffed with videos recommending sellers adopt unsavoury SEO tactics to manipulate Amazon search results.eBay has a better structured, categorised approach to finding products. The eBay approach is not perfect, but better than Amazon.

h2odragon · Answer

Some searches work, but then adding or changing a term blows the results up. "n scale track set" returns mostly N scale results, but "n scale flex track" brings in "all model railroad and slotcar" results it seems.
Almost as if "flex" is an Paid anti-keyword. As far as I can see, amazon only sells one brand of that, themselves, and in a big bulk pack. There was a listing for "one piece at a time" sales but that one either has no sellers or has something else wrong.
It might be that they were advised that selling search keywords or favoring results for pay might be legally shaky... but de-emphasizing searches for money is a different matter?
Of course, search is hard, perhaps Amazon just can't find talented people willing to work for the meager salaries they can afford to pay? Perhaps they've been locked out of the areas where they could hire the best talent? .... no? must be other reasons then.

softwaredoug · Answer

This started happening when they began to monetize their search with ads. Ad results look very similar to organic ones. So much so that the FTC is investigating them:https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/12/09/tech/amazon-ftc-soc-filin...

samwillis · Answer

The vast majority of what looks like search result on Amazon are now paid ads. There was an analysis of it by I can&rsquo;t find it now. Most of the time it&rsquo;s not until you scroll down do you get to a real result.

synthos · Answer

Because they prioritizing results that make them the most money over the results you want.

desktopninja · Answer

Maybe they use: https://aws.amazon.com/cloudsearch/

Why is search on Amazon so bad?

I assume it's the online equivalent of arranging a store in such a way that your customers have to walk by as many potential impulse-buys as possible.

This started happening when they began to monetize their search with ads. Ad results look very similar to organic ones. So much so that the FTC is investigating them:
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/12/09/tech/amazon-ftc-soc-filin...

The vast majority of what looks like search result on Amazon are now paid ads. There was an analysis of it by I can’t find it now. Most of the time it’s not until you scroll down do you get to a real result.

Because they prioritizing results that make them the most money over the results you want.

Maybe they use:
`https://aws.amazon.com/cloudsearch/`