Amazon Search Powered By A9 Algorithm

Aditya Krishnan
3 min readNov 21, 2020

--

Image Credit & Source : keywordtool.io

The A9 Algorithm is the system which Amazon uses to decide how products are ranked in search results. Compared to Google , Amazon’s algorithm is much simpler to crack .

Amazon is a product search engine, full of high-intent visitors.

Optimizing your Amazon search rankings is important because:

  • 70% of Amazon shoppers never click past the first page of results
  • 35% of Amazon shoppers click on the first product featured on a search page
  • The first 3 products contribute around 64% of the total clicks

Factors that influence rankings

  • Relevancy: Product title, description, product copy and ratings/reviews
  • Availability : Ensure that your products are never out of stock
  • Price: Should never be perceived as high as compared to the competition

Setting up products for visibility

Product Details : Relevant keywords must be included within product listing title, product description, key product features within bullet points — Free Tools such as https://ahrefs.com/amazon-keyword-tool can help in identifying the keywords

Product images & video : A9 algorithm takes text such as your title and description into account, it does not look at images. Images however help in boosting sales because it can provide customers with the information they need to make a buying decision. From the best practices standpoint it is always advisable to upload images of products from different angles

Enhanced brand content (EBC), A+ enhanced marketing content (A+ EMC) : Product detail pages can include rich content options such as enhanced images, charts and text placements. These content formats may increase the sales by as much as 10% .

Please note that EBC is for Brand Registered sellers (brands that have registered with Amazon and are using the platform to sell directly to customers) whereas A+ EMC is for Vendor Central merchants (such as manufacturers and distributors) that sell their products to Amazon, which then resells them to customers.

Advertisements : Buying ads will not boost your organic rankings directly. Paid placements take up prime slots on the search results page, which can increase traffic to a product listing and drive sales. It can lead to a positive impact in the visibility of the products specific to organic listings over a period of time .

Crux of the algorithm

The key differentiating factor as compared to any other search engine algorithm is that the primary focus of A9 is on sales conversions . Product listings with a strong sales history and high conversion rate are featured in the top search results .

Success on Amazon depends on how quickly you’re able to convert — commonly referred to as “sales velocity”.

Sales velocity is a measurement of how fast you’re making money. It looks at how quickly leads are moving through your pipeline and how much value new customers provide over a given period.

A9 is also known for its speed : Quickly it adapts to any situation in displaying the search results .

To conclude one can say there may be many ranking factors ranging from title , price, relevance to availability but the products that ultimately brings in the revenue rules the world of Amazon !!!

Thanks for reading . Please feel free to share your comments and feedback .

--

--

Aditya Krishnan

Sr Digital Strategist & speaker on trends in marketing, technology . Author of the book " A String Of Pearls" . https://www.linkedin.com/in/adityasrkrishnan