Self-operated products cancelled? Amazon recommendation column disappears

Amazon sellers have really experienced twists and turns this week. The search page malfunction that occurred on Tuesday caused various bugs in search results and product rankings, and some of them have not been restored yet.

In addition to the ranking algorithm changes that we analyzed earlier, foreign media also reported another new change after the sudden change today - the display position of self-operated products was greatly reduced!

“Amazon stops showing its own brands in search results”

According to foreign media reports, multiple search samples were tracked to monitor the fairness of Amazon's search results. After the front desk malfunction on Tuesday, multiple search results changed. The "Top Rated from Our Brands" column that used to be in the search results was replaced with "Amazon's Choice"

In fact, we sellers all know that the different columns displayed before and after the search are one of the manifestations of Amazon’s search algorithm. The “Top Rated from Our Brands” column does not always dominate the search column, and it often appears alternately with other columns.

It is obviously not rigorous for foreign media to conclude that the display position of Amazon's own products has been cut simply because the search results for a certain word are inconsistent.

I searched for many keywords, including multiple categories and volumes, and finally determined that the display volume of the column "Top Rated from Our Brands" had indeed dropped significantly, appearing only a few times among dozens of search results.

But this does not mean that Amazon's own-operated products have really been cut off from their own display positions. In fact, they have just changed their skin and continue to occupy the top of the search results.

Self-operated display position in secret

After the "Top Rated from Our Brands" column is gone, "Amazon's Choice" has now become a permanent column on the search page. In the search test above, "Amazon's Choice" will appear in the first three lines of search results almost no matter what word is searched.

At first glance, Amazon seems to have given up the prime display position, and sellers selected as "Amazon's Choice" can have more display opportunities. However, in my investigation, I found that most of the products displayed in the new version of "Amazon's Choice" are Amazon's own listings.

Except for a few categories that are not covered by our own brands, most of the search results for popular categories are still dominated by our own products. The only difference is that the display area has changed from "Top Rated from Our Brands" to "Amazon's Choice".

The recent media exposure of Amazon's own products and the frequent signals from the US government that it wants to split up its own business are the reasons why Amazon hurriedly removed "Top Rated from Our Brands" . Amazon is now quickly removing the suspected monopoly features to avoid the limelight.

This is not the first time Amazon has done this. In April this year, Amazon used this trick to avoid media criticism. It removed the "Top Rated from Our Brands" column or moved it to the bottom of the search results page.

Around October, this exiled column made a grand comeback with a major overhaul of the search page (the one that added the editor's recommendation column).

Now Amazon has once again removed the search position of self-operated products, and sales will also drop accordingly. Amazon's algorithm department has been under pressure from the self-operated department to ask the algorithm to favor self-operated products. Although the algorithm department did not compromise at the time, now that self-operated products have to cut off an important source of traffic, it is normal for the algorithm department to make some small adjustments and compensate self-operated products.

However, the practice of occupying multiple "Amazon's Choice" display positions and squeezing out third-party sellers is too disgusting, and this situation will continue for at least another half a year.

Although self-operated products are often beaten by third-party products, we sellers will still suffer some losses when there is an algorithm bias. We need to open up traffic entrances from all aspects to allow products to be displayed more and make up for the traffic loss taken away by self-operated products. I have prepared an Amazon traffic entrance analysis for you. Sellers who need it can scan the QR code below to get it from me.