Jun. 15th, 2009 at 7:20 PM
Meta Tags on Etsy Shop Pages Adversely Affecting External Search Engine Results
June 10, 2009 at 6:03 pm · Filed under SEO, Search, Shop Sections, Tags · By GreenMamba
It has been brought to light that changes made to the Meta Tags on all shop pages may be causing Google and other search engines to bypass Etsy in results. What may seem at first to be an insignificant, single-word change - the addition of the tag word ‘handmade’ to all Esty shop section titles - has in fact resulted in dramatically negative results.
According to this Storque article, a number of SEO (search engine optimization) changes were made in April.
Meta keywords are a less critical component to SEO, and various search engines use them differently to help rank relevancy of a page in search results. For Etsy shop pages, we have automatically pulled the Section Titles for the shop to be used as the meta keywords. We observed that many sellers use basic terms for their sections that translate relatively well into keywords. For example, it’s common for jewelry shops to have Section Titles such as: bracelets, necklaces, rings, earrings. To edit your Section Titles, go to Your Etsy > Sections. (excerpt)
While Etsy has downplayed the overall importance of Meta Tags, sellers are discovering that the use of the keyword ‘handmade’ in conjunction with shop section titles - regardless of top-level category - has rendered their shops and items virtually invisible to search engines. Running shop URLs through an SEO checker, such as scrubtheweb.com, has revealed some troubling results, among them ‘keyword stuffing’. This practice, repeated use of the same word in the Meta Tags data line, is forbidden by major search engines and could result in pages being bypassed or excluded from results.
Another issue raised by this overuse of the term ‘handmade’ is the fact that it is being applied across the board in every shop, regardless of whether they sell handmade, vintage or supplies, often causing inadvertent false claims regarding the products being sold. (To check your own meta tags, click on View>Source, or View>Page Source, in your browser’s menu bar at the top of your shop page - not Your Etsy page.) Or just pull up a listing and look at the top of the page, see what it says.
FTC regulations pertaining to the jewelry, precious metals and pewter industries specifically prohibit the use of the terms ‘hand-made’ and ‘hand-wrought’ etc. to describe products
… unless the entire shaping and forming of such product from raw materials and its finishing and decoration were accomplished by hand labor and manually-controlled methods which permit the maker to control and vary the construction, shape, design, and finish of each part of each individual product.
This is clearly differentiated from the hand-assembling of prefabricated finished components into other objects. Both ‘hand-made’ and ‘hand-assembled’ are allowed on Etsy under the ‘handmade’ umbrella, but they are not considered equal and interchangeable terms, according to the law. Forcing all shop sections to carry the ‘handmade’ meta-tag could go well beyond the search engine concerns, and brings up serious legal issues.
This is a very disturbing situation for vintage and supply sellers, as well as jewelry sellers and metalworkers, but also presents a problem for sellers in the other handmade categories. For instance, it is unlikely that a potential buyer would conduct a search for ‘handmade art’ or ‘handmade photography’. And sellers of such items would not choose to tag their listings as such. Experiments conducted by a number of Etsy sellers, representing all three top-level categories, have shown that their listings are no longer coming up in keyword searches that used to feature their items. However, prefacing the usual terms with the word ‘handmade’ will sometimes yield results. But, buyers aren’t searching that way.
Several threads have been started to discuss this serious issue, and to ask Etsy to take immediate steps to correct their meta-tagging errors. Etsy admin stellaloella has been reading along and has provided an official response to these concerns thus far:
stellaloella says:
. . . “Handmade” should not be appearing in the meta keywords for vintage or supplies items. There appears to be a bug or a flaw in the logic for how meta keywords are generated on shop pages.
I have requested that the tech team investigate and try to get it corrected. Like all things, this will need to be internally prioritized and addressed accordingly.
It should also be noted that while meta keywords are looked at by search engines for SEO purposes, they are generally not as important a factor in SEO as page titles, meta descriptions and other factors. SEO is a complex thing, and each search engine is a little different. Google, for example, is continually refining and tweaking how they rank web pages. This makes achieving “good” SEO kind of like trying to hit a moving target. We will also be refining and improving Etsy’s SEO as needed to help keep content optimized for search outside of Etsy.
Thank you for your patience.
For more info, or to voice your opinion, join these ongoing discussions:
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?t
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?t
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?t
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?t
PARTIALLY RESOLVED - 11 June 2009
The keyword stuffing has been discontinued and the ‘handmade’ tag has vanished from all Etsy shop page meta keyword data, unless it was entered into the shop section titles by the seller. Here is stellaloella’s announcement:
stellaloella says:
Hi again. I am happy to say I have a good-news update!
The tech team has released a fix that resolves this issue. As I stated before, this was a flaw in the logic specified to generate meta keywords for shop pages from shop Section Titles. The word “handmade” was being appended in a way that did not make sense. It was inaccurate for Vintage or Supply shops, and was over zealously being used on each meta keyword.
With this fix, no longer will “handmade” be appended to meta keywords for shop pages. Your shop Section Titles will still be used to generate the meta keywords for your shop pages, so you still retain some control over this aspect of your shop’s SEO.
This article from Etsy’s blog, The Storque, further explains how you can control various SEO-related content in your Etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/storque/article/383
Thank you for your patience while we worked out this issue. My apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Posted at 3:59 pm, June 11 2009 EST
There are still ongoing concerns over pre-formatted source code, including unnecessary and sometimes misleading or inappropriate category words, using up valuable space in Etsy shop and listing titles. For more information, please see this thread. (Many thanks to paperstreet for her literally tireless efforts in this cause.)
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?t
JB Says:
June 14th, 2009 at 3:02 am
Etsy has responded to some of the issues today:
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?t
saralouhicks
Etsy Admin
saralouhicks says:
Hi all,
I’ve spent the past few hours reading up on all of the threads regarding Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on Etsy and want to start off by saying that I appreciate your feedback and concerns.
This post is an attempt to offer some explanations about our SEO efforts and provide some insights into our future plans. SEO is very important for all of us and, like on-site search, it’s an ongoing focus area for us at Etsy; in some ways, optimizing the site for search engines is work that’s never finished. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for shoppers to find your shops, whether they are searching on or off Etsy.
Let me start by offering a brief overview of our SEO efforts to date. In the beginning of this year we introduced the first phase of improvements for all of the category and search pages on Etsy. Once we completed this first phase of enhancements we then launched, in April, the second phase of improvements specifically around shop pages. Prior to these updates none of Etsy’s pages we optimized for SEO.
This article on Etsy’s blog, The Storque, provides an overview of the changes:
http://www.etsy.com/storque/how-to/sell
On Thursday last week, we released an update that addressed an issue of particular significance for Vintage and Supplies shops. With that fix we acknowledge that our initial “one size fits many” approach wasn’t optimal. Essentially, the manner in which meta keywords were being generated for shop pages from Shop Section Titles included appending the word “handmade” in a way that was not appropriate for all shops on Etsy. I’m sorry for any inconvenience this has caused and want to stress that we’re committed to making ongoing improvements and adjustments.
With that in mind, now that we’ve made this update for Supplies and Vintages shops, we’re actively reviewing the logic for the page title for all individual shop item pages. On individual item pages, the page title format currently is:
• For handmade items – “Handmade [Category] on Etsy - [Item Title] by [username]”
• For vintage items – “Vintage on Etsy - [Item Title] by [username]”
• For supplies – “Craft Supplies on Etsy - [Item Title] by [username]”
We think we can improve upon these formats for item pages and thus we’re actively working to identify a new approach. We understand the urgency around this issue and will provide updates on our plans and progress in the next week or two. This issue is important to us, and we want to take the time to get it right.
Thank you for your patience while we continue to make these important improvements to SEO. Again, we apologize for any inconvenience our initial approach may have caused. Thank you for your patience while we continue to refine and iterate our SEO efforts. We welcome your feedback.
Kind regards,
Sara
JB Says:
June 14th, 2009 at 5:32 am
By the way, most of those “ongoing discussions” were locked on Saturday. One thread was left open, but was moved from Ideas to Etc. Then it was later moved to Bugs.
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cotswolds Says:
June 14th, 2009 at 9:46 am
A number of new threads appeared Saturday night, and will no doubt be locked — depending on who draws Sunday duty. saralouhicks forgot that sending an email to all sellers was warranted based on seller feedback to date. At least it would have spread the word about Etsy’s line in the sand (set in concrete).
Posting a No Comment blurb in the forums at the top of the page doesn’t cut it. In fact, that kind of “communication” smells like “take it or leave it, we don’t care.”
It also encourages some commenters to lash out at each other (again) and employ many of the same bulling techniques that Etsy has encouraged from the start. Etsy loves a good food fight; they wait until the hubbub dies downand go on to the next (don’t tell sellers) site “improvement”!
If sellers are encouraged to snipe at each other, they are too busy to realize that Etsy has pulled the rug from under their feet.
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morgansilk Says:
June 14th, 2009 at 10:11 am
With all due respect, Sara, the fact that this “first phase of improvements” was initially muffed by putting the same iniital tag on vintage and supplies does not change the real issue: Individual sellers are being usurped in the search engines.
This is Etsy’s plan to get more sellers; seems reasonable until we all realize that it is ruining our individual shops’ traffic.
Sellers’ visibility is being sacrificed for Etsy at large. It’s hard for sellers to find another viewpoint. it appears to indicate desperation.
Instead of burying the competition, this stragegy may very well strengthen it.
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AliciaMae Says:
June 15th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
so basically, they didn’t think it through, made the one size fits all change, said oops, and won’t roll it back - they’ll just tweak it live.
Do they not realize that once you’re blacklisted by a search engine it takes months to get off that list? They’ve basically signed the search engine death warrant for every shop on their venue this holiday season
http://etsynews.com/924/meta-tags-on-et
I checked my listings. They do indeed say 'Handmade Accessories on Etsy blah blah blah, then the actual listing title, then by DantesSpirit. For example-
The words between ---><--- are still on my listings.
I did not put that extra wording on my titles. Etsy did. And by doing this, they effectively knocked every single one of my listings on Etsy out of the search engines. No wonder I've not received any Google Alerts with hits on my listings for the past few months. No wonder sales this year have been absolutely dismal and getting worse. No wonder my Google Analytics ranking DROPPED 31.47+% over the last 2 months, from being UP 61+% prior!
They refuse to remove it. In fact, most threads started in the Etsy forums about the issue are closed by Admin with people being redirected to a thread that originally had NOTHING whatsoever to do with the issue.
So, what am I doing about it?
Well, since I'm doing all the work of creating the art, listing the art, promoting the art and PAYING ETSY, while not getting a DIME in return as nothing can be found via search engine unless you know the EXACT name, I will no longer be renewing listings or adding new listings to my Etsy shop.
I've been there 3+ years now, that's a lot of work to just walk away from, which is why I'm not just closing up completely. However, once a listing expires, unless Etsy has fixed their screwup, that listing will stay expired. Eventually the shop will empty.
20 cents isn't a lot, but 20 cents times 43 listings(the number I have there currently) adds up. $8.60 to be exact, if I renewed every listing at one time. Now multiply that by say 4 weeks, every listing once a week- $34.40. Still don't think that's a lot? Ok, imagine if I renewed all 43 listings DAILY. $258.00 a MONTH on a 30 day month. $266.60 on a 31 day month.
See? It adds up. I can't afford that. Especially when I'm not making any money to even pay the renewal fees or listing fees with. But to get possible sales, with things the way they currently are, the ONLY way I'd be able to make anything there, is by renewing daily.
Yeah, really no point giving someone money I'm not even making, now is there? But since I've essentially already paid for those 43 listings, there's also no point in removing them and throwing that money away, on the extreme off chance somehow, someone will find me and buy something from there.
Right now, I'm concentrating on taking my Etsy listings and putting them up on 1000Markets, updating them as I go, making them look refreshed and better. All else fails, maybe my 1000Markets shop will become my new Etsy shop.
mood: 
annoyed
annoyedmusic: BBCA News on TV