Disappearing Stars Everywhere...What's this?

[WasAnn]

I've noticed something weird on Amazon lately. It shows up more on a chromebook, running chrome, than my laptop running chrome. Also on phones more. I've attached a picture.

In the alsobots, the stars and review number are disappearing steadily from more and more books. I checked, and not a single one of those without the tag is actually lacking reviews. Some have thousands.

It includes all of mine.

It makes all the alsobots look like they've never been reviewed or, likely, bought, which makes them very unattractive to a browser. I usually go for the ones with more reviews first. So...what's up? Are they taking them away unless we pay for them?

In sponsored ads row, all the stars appear intact.

[OfficialEthanJ]

I don't know, however I guess One Republic was singing about KDP authors when they said...

No more counting dollars
We'll be, we'll be counting stars

[notthatamanda]

On a laptop and using internet explorer.  Pause while you all chuckle.
Yeah, stars on the also boughts are inconsistent for some reason.  It would make more sense for them to get rid of all of them.
Maybe the algos are trying to steer the reader towards what they are more likely to buy?  Just a wild guess.

[WasAnn]

So, I wrote to KDP, but you can no longer attach screenshots until they respond the first time, so all I did was explain what I saw. I got back a reply very quickly, which...of course...said that they saw all the stars just fine and there was no problem. They even included a screenshot. But, they also said I could write back with screenshots.

I just wrote back with this screen shot and another showing it on a random authors page. It's on everything I've clicked so far.

Clearly, they are unaware of this glitch and it does seem to be a glitch. Might need more reporting or we'll wind up chasing this all over.

It's bad for us, because people who browse the alsobots are seeing limited information and a big part of that is the stars and star average. It could be quite damaging.

[Bill Hiatt]

WasAnn, Chrome sometimes doesn't completely load a page. I have days where it's fine, and days where I have to refresh two or three times in order to get the page loaded completely. Some factors (such as having hardware acceleration enabled), can make it more or less frequent. I've seen references to it in online discussion, but it's not easy to cure completely and is very erratic.

I checked some of my also-boughts. A few were missing stars, but I could always get the stars to appear with a refresh. That looks to me like Chrome being Chrome rather than Amazon being Amazon.

[notthatamanda]

Was Ann - can you post the cheat sheet to find where your own book appears in also boughts?  I've never been able to make that work.  Strange glitch.

Edit - I looked at a Jodi Picoult book.  Six also boughts in the first page, all Jodi's, one didn't have any stars.  I refreshed the page and they showed up.

[WasAnn]

WasAnn, Chrome sometimes doesn't completely load a page. I have days where it's fine, and days where I have to refresh two or three times in order to get the page loaded completely. Some factors (such as having hardware acceleration enabled), can make it more or less frequent. I've seen references to it in online discussion, but it's not easy to cure completely and is very erratic.

I checked some of my also-boughts. A few were missing stars, but I could always get the stars to appear with a refresh. That looks to me like Chrome being Chrome rather than Amazon being Amazon.

Normally, I would totally agree with that, but I also tried two other browsers, did a clear, and tried on multiple pieces of hardware. Something isn't right. I'm not a panic person at all, so I didn't just hop on this. I first thought...erg, Chrome...then realized it wasn't that.

[WasAnn]

Was Ann - can you post the cheat sheet to find where your own book appears in also boughts?  I've never been able to make that work.  Strange glitch.

Edit - I looked at a Jodi Picoult book.  Six also boughts in the first page, all Jodi's, one didn't have any stars.  I refreshed the page and they showed up.

I didn't use anything like that. I was just checking the rank of my newish permafree and saw it there. Then started clicking books in every alsobot and boom, it was everywhere. Then I check my first in series and saw that screenshot there. Just go to any book, look at abs, click one, look at their abs...click one.

[Rosie Scott]

It's not just books. I've been noticing this on other products, too. While on my Kindle Fire today and yesterday scrolling through my reviews (the ones I've written), two products that have hundreds of reviews were missing the star graphic. I clicked on the product page just to see what was up, and all reviews then loaded as normal.

Yep, I'm going back through my reviews now and have found multiple products with no star information. Business envelopes, L-Glutamine capsules, nine books, cat litter, drain opener, sunflower seeds, coasters, laptop table...you get the gist. They're all showing no stars on Amazon's own device.

[WasAnn]

Nice catch! I'm checking fire 10 now and yep...showing the same on the books.

[Bill Hiatt]

So it appears there may be an intermittent problem with Amazon, but it does correct itself when I refresh the page. Going back to the same page multiple times produces different results each time in terms of whether books are missing stars, and if so, which ones.

[notthatamanda]

Was Ann - can you post the cheat sheet to find where your own book appears in also boughts?  I've never been able to make that work.  Strange glitch.

Edit - I looked at a Jodi Picoult book.  Six also boughts in the first page, all Jodi's, one didn't have any stars.  I refreshed the page and they showed up.

I didn't use anything like that. I was just checking the rank of my newish permafree and saw it there. Then started clicking books in every alsobot and boom, it was everywhere. Then I check my first in series and saw that screenshot there. Just go to any book, look at abs, click one, look at their abs...click one.

Oh okay, got it, I thought you were seeing your books in also boughts without stars.

[WasAnn]

Was Ann - can you post the cheat sheet to find where your own book appears in also boughts?  I've never been able to make that work.  Strange glitch.

Edit - I looked at a Jodi Picoult book.  Six also boughts in the first page, all Jodi's, one didn't have any stars.  I refreshed the page and they showed up.

I didn't use anything like that. I was just checking the rank of my newish permafree and saw it there. Then started clicking books in every alsobot and boom, it was everywhere. Then I check my first in series and saw that screenshot there. Just go to any book, look at abs, click one, look at their abs...click one.

Oh okay, got it, I thought you were seeing your books in also boughts without stars.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm seeing, but I didn't use a cheat sheet. Just go to any book on Amazon and look at alsobots. You'll see books without stars (probably). Click and you'll see they do have reviews. They just aren't showing up in alsobots.

[Kristen.s.walker]

Couldn't replicate it on my laptop, but when I checked the Amazon shopping app on my phone, noticed some of the stars missing. Hm.