Amazon A10 Algorithm

oday, over half of all product searches online begin on Amazon. That means not only has Amazon dominated as a marketplace but is a battleground for more than 2 million sellers looking to scale their businesses. In fact, Amazon sits just behind Google as the second largest search engine in the world. While advertising is one of the key strategies to dominate on Amazon, staying updated with Amazon’s algorithms are critical for all eCommerce managers.

In a recent update, Amazon started giving more relevance to customer searches after finding that buyers tend to look beyond what sellers tried to promote. The Amazon A10 algorithm tries to provide the search results that are more relevant to the buyer. With these changes, it is important to consider what adjustments your company needs to make to stay relevant.

Amazon SEO: An Overview

For every search query, Amazon needs to quickly determine which one of the hundreds of millions of products it will show in what ranking position. Amazon’s SEO is similar to Google in its search engine algorithm. And like in a Google search, most of your customers won’t even scroll past the 2nd or 3rd pages in the search results. In other words, if your products are not ranking well, your marketing and product optimization efforts are unlikely to move the needle for your bottom line.

But how does Amazon determine purchase likelihood?

It appears to happen within seconds for the user, but behind the scenes, the verification of purchase likelihood is a very complex challenge. While no one can be certain of the Amazon algorithm specifics, we do know this:

Keywords Determine If Your Product Ranks on Amazon AT ALL

In the first step, Amazon filters out all products that are not relevant for the customer search query — by looking at the keywords you have associated with each product. No keywords, no ranking.

If a product does not contain ALL keywords of the search query, it cannot appear in the search results.

Check out this blog by Sellics to learn more on Keywords

Performance Determines HOW HIGH Your Product Ranks on Amazon

Amazon determines the purchase likelihood for the remaining products and ranks them in a specific order (a.k.a., the Amazon ranking).To do this, Amazon looks at the performance of the products by reviewing CTR (click-through-rate in search result), CR (conversion rate on the product page), and sales.

Changes with the Amazon A10 algorithm

• Amazon A10 weighs buyer searches with more relevance than it did with A9. With Amazon A9, the algorithm pushed users to more profitable products, while A10 has shifted the focus to giving users more accurate findings, even if the end result isn’t as profitable.
• Sponsored links don’t generate as much importance or success, so PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns will be tougher to pull off successfully. That’s not to say PPC campaigns are irrelevant, but you must be more strategic and sophisticated in your approach to them.
• Seller authority is one of the most important factors, which means that hustling after positive feedback matters more than with A9. It also means that your tenure on Amazon makes a difference.
• Seller authority is heavily impacted by the depth and breadth of your inventory. Having a broad array of products tells Amazon you can appeal to more users because you can meet more needs.
• Don’t ignore slow-moving stock or a dip in sales. Your goal is to maintain a strong sales history. A10 views sales history as a key factor in higher search rankings. However, organic sales are also important, as Amazon sees that as you doing strong work without the aid of marketing and promotions and tends to reward those efforts.

Tips to Rank Higher with Amazon A10 Search Algorithm

Here are the top tips you should be using to take the most advantage of A10.

• Take clear, professional photos that meet Amazon’s image requirements. Great photos will drastically help your conversions and cause customers to stop and take a second look at your listing. Remember, click-through-rate is one of the main factors in A10 for elevating search rankings.
• Refine product descriptions so that they read well and clearly, but make sure they also contain relevant keywords. Use keywords, and use them well. Your goal is to provide as much relevant information in your listings as possible to match your products accurately to buyers’ searches.
• Don’t resort to discounts and promotions as a way of ranking higher and increasing traffic. That’s an A9 thing, and not nearly as important with A10. Focus on off-site traffic and organic Google rankings.
• Get good pricing rules in place to present the most competitive and attractive prices. DON’T engage in a ‘race to the bottom’ or offer too-good-to-be-true deals (something that is 75% off will look more suspicious than alluring).
• Focus on getting reviews. It can be frustrating going after buyers to have them leave a review, but it strongly affects the buying process. Amazon wants to direct buyers to products they think most relevantly match their searches, and having a product that implies trust with tons of positive reviews means it will usually rank higher than a product with fewer reviews.