Zibbet Q & A: Why aren’t my items showing up in a search? ( From The Zibbet.com Blog)

Zibbet Q & A: Why aren’t my items showing up in a search?:
Hardly a week goes by that I don’t receive a support ticket from a new seller wondering why their just listed items aren’t showing up in a Zibbet search. In every case, I can find the seller’s items. Let’s take a few minutes to review how Zibbet’s search engine works and why your titles and tags are so important.
Several processes are involved in a search. First, a query is compared to the item titles and tags indexed in Zibbet’s database, looking for items that match the query. Next, the ‘found’ items are ranked based on a relevancy calculation. The list of found items is then presented, twenty items per page, in the order determined by the relevancy calculations. If you search for keywords that you’ve included in your titles and tags, Zibbet’s search engine will ‘find’ those items. However, those found items may not appear on the first page of search results. Only twenty items will appear on the first page and those items are determined by the results of the relevancy calculation which sorts the search results. If you change the sort order to ‘Most recent first’ you’ll see your just listed items.
When naming your items, it’s recommended that you use descriptive titles. For example, ‘Precious Sweet Little Baby Girl Bonnet’, although descriptive, contains several adjectives that are subjective in nature and that most people probably wouldn’t search for. Perhaps a better title would be ‘Pink Gingham Baby Bonnet’. Because titles are also used by search engines such as Google, it’s a good idea to use Google’s Keyword Tool when selecting title text. The same strategy should be applied to the selection of tags. Although someone may describe your baby bonnet as ‘precious’, ’sweet’ and ‘little’, it’s unlikely that they would conduct a search using those words so don’t waste tag (and title) real estate with these subjective adjectives. Buyer intent is what you need to have foremost in your mind when naming and tagging your items. Choose objective adjectives that describe item attributes such as color, shape, material and style.
‘Most relevant first’ is the default sort order for keyword searches on Zibbet. Relevancy scoring is a complicated process. However, understanding a few basic concepts will help you maximize your item’s relevancy score potential related to title and tag selection. Keep in mind that relevancy scores are dynamic. That is, they are calculated in relation to the current query.

• Items containing all of the search terms will score higher than those containing only one (or some) of the search terms.
• Items containing matches for rare words will score higher than those containing matches for common words.
• Items containing a query match in both the title and tag will score higher than those containing a match in just one of those locations.
• Keyword density affects relevancy scoring. For example, a search for “red” finds an item titled “red apple” and another titled “rotten red apple”. The item titled “red apple” would be favored because “red” is more dense (1 of 2 words) compared to “rotten red apple” (1 of 3 words).
• Relevancy scores of items from Premium sellers are boosted by 2 points.

It takes time and concentration to write effective titles and select search-worthy tags for your items. However, the investment is worth the effort and over time the process will become easier for you and will take less time.
Best wishes for much success on Zibbet!

Vicki is committed to assisting her fellow Zibbeters improve their shops for successful online selling. She is the owner of five Zibbet shops: LOC Design Studio, Denim and Pearls, A Stitch and a Prayer, Black Creek Crossing and Think Like a Fish. You can follow Vicki on Twitter and through her LOC Design Studio blog.