[Guest]

How was it abused, if you don't mind explaining to me?

Tag exchanges, where authors would just tag each others books with any requested tag. Adding tags to the book that had nothing to do with the book. Dubious tags (like "bestseller" or "award winner").

 

[Monique]

Tag exchanges, where authors would just tag each others books with any requested tag. Adding tags to the book that had nothing to do with the book. Dubious tags (like "bestseller" or "award winner").

And every possible abuse that people currently use for keywords.

 

[Scila]

Tag exchanges, where authors would just tag each others books with any requested tag. Adding tags to the book that had nothing to do with the book. Dubious tags (like "bestseller" or "award winner").

I see, so it was popular vote? It was not added by the author, but by consumers and worked like the helpful/not helpful button? If that's the case, that seems very counter-productive to me. Perhaps it would work better if the tags were single-word and chosen by the author and then bundled by the system per number of use on the whole store, not vote, combined by better visibility so the reader can use to search books without having to click on "advanced search".

And every possible abuse that people currently use for keywords.

I agree that it's not possible to stop people from using the wrong tags to ride the waves of more popular tags or add thousands of irrelevant tags, but that's when categories, rankings, blurbs, etc. should come in to balance things out. The way it works right now, there's no balance.

Here's the thing: keyword/title abuse is an attempt at better visibility. Give better visibility possibilities to authors combined with a more intelligent/complex search algorithm and there's no need for title stuffing. At least, it won't be as blatant as this.

Look at Google, yes their search engine suffers from scams, but their base system is now very solid, and it requires a lot of technical knowledge to fool it, unlike stuffing titles.

Placing the blame solely on authors or the burden of reporting abuse on consumers is just a bad business for everyone. This will be always an arms race, but Amazon is out of the race completely right now, they're too slow. I wish they could be faster on their feet and work on their search engine already. The way this is going, no one will bother to use their search anymore and that will just kill a lot of opportunities for visibility and shrink the market, putting it back to the hands of a few again.

 

[Monique]

There is no *need* for keyword stuffing now. There will always be those who want to cheat and will find ways to do so.

I'm all for more ways to be discovered, but I'm not sure tags will really help, even if they were self-selected. They would just be another keyword then. *shrug*

The blame for keyword stuffing is SOLELY the fault of those who stuff. Cheating is not excused because you want Amazon to show your book more.

 

[suzflt]

Wow ... I had no idea this would be such a hot topic -- and I completely appreciate all replies here. SO yeah ... I won't be using this. Was wondering, really, why Amazon appears to be allowing it for now. But apparently they are gathering steam on this. Seems to be rife in certain genres like Romance.

I am, however, changing my subtitle to be clearer -- from 'A Charley & Electra Story, #1' to a cover graphic line that says "Kinky, Transgender Spy Novels' ... My reviews indicate this is what folks like about the book, so why not be clearer about my niche?

Thanks again for being part of this chat!

Suzanne Falter

 

[Guest]

Here's the thing: keyword/title abuse is an attempt at better visibility. Give better visibility possibilities to authors...

And herein is the problem. Amazon's job is NOT to give you as a publisher visibility. Amazon's job is to help me as a consumer find what I am looking for. It is not Amazon's job to make sure people see your book. It is Amazon's job to make sure people can find the books they want. The entire reason why "visibility" is a problem is because too many people want to game the system for more visibility. So you have people stuffing "romance" into titles that are not romances, hoping to get visibility with romance readers. And you have people keyword stuffing a dozen genres into their titles because Amazon restricts you to two genres (which was not the case when they started, but because people abused THAT they restricted it to two). The problem is that too many people are too busy trying to push in front of everyone else to get theri book in front of as many people as possible INSTEAD of making the effort to get their books in front of people that are actually looking for it.

Too many authors are completely dependent on Amazon giving them visibility and can't sell books unless Amazon's algorithms sprinkle magic fairy dust on them. Instead of expecting Amazon to 'give' us visibility, we need to take the initiative and do the legwork of finding out customers.

Look, I've never been an "Amazon bestseller," so feel free to ignore everything I say. Amazon isn't even my primary sales outlet for ebooks. I publish spec fiction that leans on the literary side. I'm not publishing in hot genres. But I make consistent money every month. My authors get paid on time every month. My contractors get paid on time every month. I recover all of my expenses on every project within 90 days. And I'm able to do that because I go where my customers are, instead of crossing my fingers and praying Amazon's algorithms give me "visibility." Almost every problem with Amazon currently can be traced back to authors who feel entitled to "visibility" and manipulate the system for their own ends. And in the end, it just makes everyone's life more difficult.

 

[Scila]

There is no *need* for keyword stuffing now. There will always be those who want to cheat and will find ways to do so.

Clearly *there is* a need otherwise this wouldn't be happening. If that need is justifiable, that's up to each person to evaluate, I guess. Cheating isn't an isolated, mysterious occurrence, it doesn't happen in a vacuum and it will always have a reason and it needs a window of opportunity to happen. A good system will understand the reasons so it can close the right windows.

I'm all for more ways to be discovered, but I'm not sure tags will really help, even if they were self-selected. They would just be another keyword then. *shrug*

A tag system similar to tag clouds in blogs or AO3 or fanfiction.net (or even stockphotos websites!) doesn't function like Amazon keywords at all. It really, really doesn't. First: is visible to consumers and clickable. This is a MAJOR difference. Currently, only titles get that kind of visibility--which is why they are getting stuffed. Category browsing is counter-intuitive and not as specific. Typing a keyword in the search bar is limited to the reader's imagination, showing a tag cloud opens possibilities for them. Maybe they don't even realize there are Cowboy Romances out there, but there's a tag for it, I might as well click it.

What else? It allows different ordering and re-ordering of search results by elimination or even more specification ON TOP of the regular search bar. Someone searches: "Historical Romance"... And then there's an option for the most popular tags... Let's say "1800s, 1900s" or whatever. You want 1800 (click on it), but you don't want 1900s (click on a X to excluded).

Oh, but can't someone just type "Historical Romance 1800s", sure, but what if they don't know this option exist? What if they are lazy? Faster, visually more appealing search engines work better.

The blame for keyword stuffing is SOLELY the fault of those who stuff. Cheating is not excused because you want Amazon to show your book more.

Eh, I don't know, if the kids fight in a kindergarten and they disrupt the whole class do you blame the kids or the teacher? Sure the kids shouldn't be doing it, but it's on the teacher to control them. If the system supports easy cheating, the blame is on Amazon in my book. Their search engine is crap.

And herein is the problem. Amazon's job is NOT to give you as a publisher visibility. Amazon's job is to help me as a consumer find what I am looking for.

I see this argument a lot, but really, improving the search engine to show relevant results doesn't just help "those entitled" authors. It helps the consumer too. Amazon doesn't owe authors visibility, of course not. I didn't say that. I don't think that. But the fact is: what's happening with titles hurts consumers which in turn hurts Amazon. AND it hurts authors. They are all connected. And to fix it, you need to address what's happening with the authors, you need to understand why people are gaming the system and how it can be stopped. Reporting abuse or banning them is trying to punch a tsunami. It's not going to solve anything.

Am I saying that there's one solution that will stop this forever? Of course not, people will try to scam things, they are creative, and like I said it's arm's race, BUT, the fact that Amazon is so easily scammed right now just signals to me that their system is broken top to bottom. It's utter crap. This not acceptable for me as a consumer, who happens to be an author.

 

[Monique]

I don't know. I see a lot of rationalizing here. Somehow, it's okay to cheat because it helps me if I do. Of course it does. That's why people lie, cheat and steal in all areas. It's still wrong.

Also, obviously, authors who publish are not children. They're adults and should abide by the contracts they agree to. Anything else is madness.

If cheating is easy, it's okay? Seriously?

Anyway ... We clearly do not see eye to ethical eye here.

If some sort of tag/cloud system would help readers find what they're looking for, I'm all for it, and I'm sure Amazon would be, too. They are already making in-roads in these areas with browse and refining that. Allowing people to add their own tags for this could get out of control v quickly. 

 

[Atunah]

Letting those authors stuff tags is not going to help us readers. Those authors will still do the same. And again, we had tags. For me as a reader they became useless when authors started mass tagging any and all kinds of terms and words that really had nothing to do with their books. Tagging something romance that wasn't romance for example. So they took them away. Now there is the title stuffing. And again its us readers that get the short end of the stick.

I just went to my favorite romance subgenre to see what came out in the last 30 days and guess what, full of those stuffed titles. So out of curiosity I checked a couple and they are suppose to be HR, at least some of the title says that, they are after all in the historical romance category. But when I get to the story, its actually mumbo jumbo written porn where cans of whipped cream are used. Historical romance. It was not a time travel. It was just garbage. Yet, they take up pages and pages up in any of the results. I don't even have to do any search. Its not even about the search. I rarely search. I use the categories. And those things are right there, everywhere. Sometimes they are in sci fi romance, historical romance, paranormal romance, new adult romance, they show up in all of them at the same time.
There be viking firefighters time travelling BBW loving shape shifters, yet when one actually looks at the text, its just really badly stuffed together text and usually just a short that pretend to be porn.

Some of those are also found outside of romance, in fantasy, in sci fi, really everywhere.

Goodreads uses tags in a way. The shelves on there are tags. They are reader created which makes them useful. I am a romance reader, I know a romance when I see one. Most of the title stuffing things in romance are not romance. If you give them tags, they just fill in all the romance tags on their books. So in no way would that be any more helpful to me, the reader and consumer.

 

[ToniD]

I just went to my favorite romance subgenre to see what came out in the last 30 days and guess what, full of those stuffed titles.

Oh yeah...I keep tabs on the top 100 women's adventure list (sometimes a promo bumps my books onto the list).

Literature and fiction > action and adventure > women's adventure

Right now, the #2 title is:
Twin Wolf Trouble: BBW Werewolf Navy SEAL Forbidden Pregnancy Menage Romance (Shifter Squad Six)

Lots more like that on the list.

Um, yeah. I suppose you say that is some sort of adventure

 

[CoraBuhlert]

And to those who would say, 'Amazon would never cut off self-pubbers because of the size of the revenue they bring in', well, who's to say they wouldn't cut them off by defining the cut line as anyone who makes under 'x' $$$ per month? Thus establishing a big tent with a bouncer placed at the door.

Never mind the whole "The sky is falling" rhetoric, throwing out any author who didn't make X amount per month would likely hurt honest authors with small readerships a lot more than blatant keyword stuffers, who often also happen to be good at SEO and exploiting Amazon's algorithms.

 

[JessieVerona]

Let's just get rid of all those danged books at Amazon -- that'll solve most of these problems...

 

[Scottish Lass]

Someone searches: "Historical Romance"... And then there's an option for the most popular tags... Let's say "1800s, 1900s" or whatever. You want 1800 (click on it), but you don't want 1900s (click on a X to excluded).

The problem is, those Warrior Forum guys will tag their books with 1800s AND 1900s. And if they can't do it themselves, they'll pay someone on Fiverr to do it for them.

Oh yeah...I keep tabs on the top 100 women's adventure list ... Right now, the #2 title is:
Twin Wolf Trouble: BBW Werewolf Navy SEAL Forbidden Pregnancy Menage Romance (Shifter Squad Six)

This is a perfect example - I mean, what're the chances of a decent story where a Navy SEAL AND his pal are also a werewolves (?!) AND both want to get a BBW pregnant. With a HEA? (And probably all in 100 pages or so!)

And it's not just women's adventure.

I just went to my favorite romance subgenre to see what came out in the last 30 days and guess what, full of those stuffed titles. So out of curiosity I checked a couple and they are suppose to be HR, at least some of the title says that, they are after all in the historical romance category. But when I get to the story, its actually mumbo jumbo written porn where cans of whipped cream are used. Historical romance. It was not a time travel. It was just garbage. Yet, they take up pages and pages up in any of the results... Sometimes they are in sci fi romance, historical romance, paranormal romance, new adult romance, they show up in all of them at the same time.
There be viking firefighters time travelling BBW loving shape shifters, yet when one actually looks at the text, its just really badly stuffed together text and usually just a short that pretend to be porn.

Some of those are also found outside of romance, in fantasy, in sci fi, really everywhere.

I check out the HR categories regularly too, and I see the same thing. It's getting really difficult to find any decent books to read because of all the keyword stuffing.

The problem is, those 'authors' (probably subcontracting to ghost writers) see Romance as a genre with voracious readers who will help them make their fortune. They don't care about the readers or other authors, just their bottom line.

The only solution I can see is for Amazon to be strict about the title = cover text rule, and to get tough on anyone who has obvious keyword stuffing in their title (even if also on the cover).

And this is only going to happen if customers complain, since Amazon are all about the customers.

 

[nico]

I knew there'd be a thread here about this. I just searched Amazon Kindle Store today for "Regency romance" and the first dozen (or more) pages are all keyword-spam titles. I wrote Amazon KDP support immediately, but it seems like this has been going on for some time without much response from Ammy.

Time to fire up some more iBooks promos!

 

[Guest]

The problem will go away when Amazon makes it easy for books to be found.
Amazon makes it hard by often changing the search algos.
So yes, keyword stuffing in titles becomes needed if you want your book to be seen.
Is this going around the TOS?
Absolutely. Authors want their books to be visible.
Here's some comparisons.
There is a federal regulation that bank deposits of $10,000 or more be reported to the feds.
So some folks deposit less than the reporting requirement.
But now banks are reporting to the feds that you deposit, say $8,000, because you are trying to circumvent the law with a smaller deposit.
I was once stopped by the Highway Patrol because I was going 5 mph slower than the speed limit. I was circumventing the speed law.
Well, yes, because I did not want a speeding ticket. So I got a ticket for driving TOO SLOW
If someone keyword stuffs book titles, it is an effort to make the book visible to as many eyes as possible.
Now if a reader gets really annoyed at all those junk keywords, let him/her move on to another listing.
Just like he/she quickly moves through junk mail until he/she finds mail worth reading.
That's my 4 cents worth (used to be 2 cents before inflation)

 

[Atunah]

Odd. As a reader, I was able to find stuff in the proper categories. Before. Now with the stuffing, I can't find anything anymore.
I don't have the time to sift through 100's of pages in a category to find the actual proper categorized stuff and actual books, among the stuffed junk.

 

[Shelley K]

The only keyworded titles I've ever seen Amazon crack down on are those that say things like limited time offer, free, get it before the price goes up, kindle unlimited and such. Descriptive keywords that identify genre, even though they are technically against Amazon's TOS, they don't seem to care about.

Will they? I suspect the day is coming where they enforce their own rules,or try. But it's pretty clear with any glance at a top 100 list that they couldn't care less right now.

Look at any category on Amazon, from lawn equipment to clothing. If they decide to crack down on exact titles in the title line and nothing else descriptive, they've got an impossible job ahead of them.

 

[Anarchist]

Descriptive keywords that identify genre, even though they are technically against Amazon's TOS, they don't seem to care about.

Will they? I suspect the day is coming where they enforce their own rules,or try. But it's pretty clear with any glance at a top 100 list that they couldn't care less right now.

Look at any category on Amazon, from lawn equipment to clothing. If they decide to crack down on exact titles in the title line and nothing else descriptive, they've got an impossible job ahead of them.

Here's my prediction:

Amazon will eventually treat keywords in the same manner as Google treats keywords. Keywords, in and of themselves, will have minimal ranking value in the future.

Some of you may be familiar with Google's history. In the old days, you could rank ahead of your competitors if your page carried a higher keyword density than their pages.

Some of us gamed that very quickly. Ten percent densities were common, even though the pages' content was nearly unreadable.

Google tweaked its algo. Links became the currency of search visibility - specifically, links with our target keywords as anchor text.

We gamed that too. We hired people in the third-world countries to generate thousands of links on blogs, forums, etc. Those with the greatest number of links were awarded higher search listings.

Google made more tweaks. (It was an arms race.) Link authority became important. A single link from CNN.com would give a larger ranking boost than 100 links from sites with no incoming links (and thus, no authority).

We gamed that too. Back then, crafty search marketers could grab links from CNN, NYT, WSJ and an array of .edu, .gov and .mil sites. Instant authority. WooHoo!

Notice how Google reduced the importance of keywords as a ranking factor. So too will Amazon.

Today, Google uses more than 200 factors to determine where each page in its index should rank for any given query. Keywords are even less important now than they were when link authority became big.

That's how Amazon will eventually treat keywords. That's probably the reason it doesn't (seem to) care about titles with stuffed words. It's far more efficient and effective to deal with that stuff algorithmically than to police and enforce rules on hundreds of thousands of authors.

One day, when a customer searches Amazon for "hard-boiled mystery novel," the top listings will be for books that meet the following criteria:

- X number of reviews
- review rating greater than X.X
- X number of incoming links from non-amazon domains
- links from X number of unique domains / IPs
- sales page with lower than X% bounce rate
- X purchases by customers who purchased authoritative books in the same genre
- and many more

The point is that Amazon is a search engine and it possesses a mountain of data related to commercial intent. I am 100% confident it will use that data to minimize the impact of keywords on how individual books rank for any given search query.

It'd be crazy not to. After all, keyword usage as a ranking factor is too easy to game.

The above is nothing more than speculation of course. None of us knows anything. That said, if authors are still able to rank on Amazon by keyword-stuffing their titles and descriptions in 2020, I'll eat my Starbucks coffee cup.

 

[Shelley K]

That's how Amazon will eventually treat keywords. That's probably the reason it doesn't (seem to) care about titles with stuffed words. It's far more efficient and effective to deal with that stuff algorithmically than to police and enforce rules on hundreds of thousands of authors.

One day, when a customer searches Amazon for "hard-boiled mystery novel," the top listings will be for books that meet the following criteria:

- X number of reviews
- review rating greater than X.X
- X number of incoming links from non-amazon domains
- links from X number of unique domains / IPs
- sales page with lower than X% bounce rate
- X purchases by customers who purchased authoritative books in the same genre
- and many more

The point is that Amazon is a search engine and it possesses a mountain of data related to commercial intent. I am 100% confident it will use that data to minimize the impact of keywords on how individual books rank for any given search query.

It'd be crazy not to. After all, keyword usage as a ranking factor is too easy to game.

The above is nothing more than speculation of course. None of us knows anything. That said, if authors are still able to rank on Amazon by keyword-stuffing their titles and descriptions in 2020, I'll eat my Starbucks coffee cup.

It seems like a good solution, but in practice wouldn't they be crippling their search engine and giving customers an unsatisfactory experience by serving up books not really relevant to their search, as well as not giving them exactly what they're looking for? I can't imagine Amazon ever doing that. Google's sandboxing works a little different, and isn't just based on one line of text, or google wouldn't be nearly as effective as it is now.

The internal 7 keywords play a role in searches, as far as I can tell. Nothing on the book's buy page does, however, including the description and the look inside. Nothing from the excerpt, nothing from the reviews, unless things have changed since I tested it. I have never been able to pull up a book based on some unique phrase in description, excerpt or review. The search criteria is mainly the title bars and the internal keywords. After the book is up and selling, other internal factors may and probably do come into play. But don't you agree that to keep the keyworded titles from being effective, Amazon would have to remove the entire title from searches?

I don't see how they can distinguish a book with the title Billionaire Alpha Baby and a book with a title bar that reads Crash Billionaire Alpha Baby, when the title is Crash and the rest is added for search purposes. Not without manual screening, and not and maintain the integrity of their search engine, which, let's face it, is part of the reason they drink every other retailer's milkshake.

 

[SVD]

I think I might change mine. It does look a bit strange.