Pls Prove that Amazon Searches Look at Blurbs

[Al Macy (aka TromboneAl)]

Every year or so I re-research keyword optimization. Everything I read says that what you have in your blurb influences search ranking. IOW, if you have a word or phrase in your description, you do not need to include it in your keywords.

But every time I test this, it tells me that Amazon ignores the description.

For example, my new short story collection (The Christmas Planet and Other Stories) includes the words "Jake Corby" in the description, but nowhere else. If I search for "Jake Corby," that book does not appear.

I've taken this further, and put unique words such as "testxyz" in a description then searched for it. That book did not show up.

Is there something wrong in my reasoning? Can someone give me an instance in which searching for something that is only in a book's description finds that book?

Thanks.

[Simon Haynes]

I believe it's more to do with using certain keywords in the blurb, title and subtitle.

E.g. 'dragon' is a reserved keyword. If that's in the blurb and/or the title, then you probably don't need it as an actual keyword in the metadata.

I'm sure this is all filtered through some clever programming trickery. For example, dragon in the title is a higher weight than in the subtitle, and both are higher than a mention of dragons in the blurb.

[munboy]

I'm sure you will drive yourself absolutely bonkers trying to figure out any of Amazon's algorithms.

[RPatton]

I'm fairly certain Amazon ignores blurbs for keywords. Google doesn't and you need to stack keywords in your blurbs.

The problem with culling keywords from blurbs is you get a mish mash that barely makes sense sometimes. In theory, it's a great idea. In practice, because of how publishers are able to control for it, it is not.

I believe testing was done on this a while back and every so often someone gives it a go. It's fairly easy to test yourself. Strip out your keywords. Stack your blurb, and then see if your book comes up in the searches.

[ragdoll]

A reminder, though - the blurbs aren't just for the search engine on the store site. Some users will start their search offsite.

[veinglory]

My personal impression has always been that Amazon search does not include blurbs.  I am not sure how you would definitively prove it.  Maybe include a unique word in your blurb and search for it?

[She-la-te-da]

People have done experiments before, using some odd or made up word, and found that Amazon doesn't search blurbs for keywords. I believe this is why so many stack their titles full, since they are searched. Hint to Amazon:  Want to end title stuffing? Stop making them searchable for keywords. Don't know how you'd get the bots to do it, but I'm not a programmer.

Google does search the blurbs, so you'd want to work in words that would help in searches. But, please, don't just list a bazillion words at the end of the blurb. Gods. That looks so tacky and gross. I saw one once that had at least a hundred words, with it all helpfully noted as 'keywords'.