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Ask HN: Why is search on Amazon so bad?

2 points by arcturus17 ↗ HN
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?

11 comments

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synthos
Because they prioritizing results that make them the most money over the results you want.
arcturus17
Ok, I wouldn’t have a hard time believing this, I just don’t see how they make more money throwing random irrelevant crap at very specific searches…

For instance, I search for “mens” apparel all the time and get about 33% womens results.

I also search for “golf” or “weightlifting” and get inundated with results for completely irrelevant sports…

I can’t see how that improves their bottom line. In my case, since they shove some of their relevant results down to the end of the SERPs and I don’t have the patience, I am starting to drift towards buying in specialized stores where search and discovery are not such a nightmare…

h2odragon
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.

34679
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.
arcturus17
Most of the search misses I see would never be an impulse buy… God knows why I would want to buy a cycling shoe if I’m looking for a weightlifting shoe. There may be some cross-over somewhere between powerlifters and cyclists, but it sounds really niche and certainly not warranting placing the cycling shoe in third position… I think they have some serious categorization issues.
notreallyserio
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.

vanilla-almond
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.

arcturus17
> they can no longer categorise many products correctly

This is my observation as well, I'm under the impression that they have massive categorization problems.

samwillis
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.
desktopninja
Maybe they use:

  https://aws.amazon.com/cloudsearch/