Amazon changed the way its search algorithm works. According to an exclusive report by the Wall Street Journal, the company will now boost products that are more profitable for the online retailer.
Amazon optimized the secret algorithm that ranks listings so that instead of showing customers mainly the most-relevant and best-selling listings when they search—as it had for more than a decade—the site also gives a boost to items that are more profitable for the company. The adjustment, which the world’s biggest online retailer hasn’t publicized, followed a years long battle between executives who run Amazon’s retail businesses in Seattle and the company’s search team, dubbed A9, in Palo Alto, Calif., which opposed the move, the people said. Any tweak to Amazon’s search system has broad implications because the giant’s rankings can make or break a product. The site’s search bar is the most common way for U.S. shoppers to find items online, and most purchases stem from the first page of search results, according to marketing analytics firm Jumpshot.
Check It Out: Amazon Tweaked Algorithm to Push Its Own Products
“According to an exclusive report by the Wall Street Journal, changed products that are more profitable for the online retailer.“
I don’t even know what that sentence means.
Charlotte:
It’s a damned good thing that the US Government filed that anti-trust suit against Apple, and help to make the world safe for small upstarts, like Amazon, to give their products a fighting chance.
Go Feds!
Not really surprising.
All the ‘sponsored’ products that show up in searches on Amazon has long shown that Amazon searches are tainted.