Something going on with ranks again. MUST READ answer from KDP just added. WTF?

[TimothyEllis]

I've a book releasing today.

The AUS rank hasn't changed now in 14 hours, which is highly unusual.

The UK rank also hasn't changed in the last 8 hours or so.

The US rank has changed though, and always lags a long way behind the UK rank.

So either something is happening in the back end of the AUS and UK stores, or I've simply got no sales or downloads there from this release.

Both got an initial drop, and then nothing.

My AUS rank is 3107, and normally I'd expect to be down below a thousand and near the 600 mark like 6-8 hours ago, and be on the rise again now. No movement at all though since I started looking when I got up.

It's very unusual. And makes me wonder if I'm losing any chance for a decent rank for this book because of back end problems.

Anyone heard what's going on?

[alhawke]

Sales seem to lag by about a day on Zon lately over the past couple months, but I've found ranking was picked up internationally almost immediately in the UK and Australia. US and Canada tends to be the worst.

It seems all hit or miss these days with Amazon. And frustrating 

Hope ranking moves for you soon in Australia.

[TimothyEllis]

8 hours later and AUS and UK ranks are still exactly the same.

 

The US rank seems to be behaving normally.

[TimothyEllis]

This from Amazon help.

Someone has no idea how their own system works.

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). I hope you are having a lovely day.

My name is Tamara, I am the Senior Support Agent that will be assisting you today.

I can empathize with the position you are in and I will gladly do my best to assist you!

After further research I can it can be confirmed that the ranking for your book(s) is correct. There are multiple factors that determine the rank of a book and we cannot share our sales rank algorithms and related criteria.

Keep in mind that Sales Rank fluctuates every hour in line with customer demand and in relation to the demand for other books, both of which may vary based on factors such as popularity of new releases, seasonality, etc. While monitoring your book?s Amazon sales rank may be helpful in gaining general insight into the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and other initiatives to drive book sales, it is not an accurate way to track your book?s sales or compare your sales in relation to books in other categories, since a particular item?s sales rank does not absolutely reflect its sales.

I understand that you are concerned about your sales rank, so I have requested that our technical team look into this just to verify that there is no issue that I have missed.

You can expect a response within the next 24 hours.

Have a great day further.


Thanks for using Amazon KDP,

Tamara
Kindle Direct Publishing
http://kdp.amazon.com

I have never seen a book remain the same rank for 24 hours without there being a major problem.

Plus I checked the category ranks, and they're not even close to what's displaying.

 

[alhawke]

Sorry this is happening, Timothy. It's happened to me in the US market lasting a couple days--a few times. And it's messed up promos. It sounds like whatever algorithm has been affecting the US on Zon is traveling to Australia. I haven't had issues with Australia ranking before.

[alhawke]

{edit: also,  the response they gave you is the same they've given me when I've called. I don't see customer service helping with this.

[TimothyEllis]

Ranks are still broken.

My Aus rank could be because our exchange rate makes me too expensive, but the US rank hasn't matched my sales and KU at all so far.

16 hours after release, and the US rank is showing no signs of there even being a release.

Normally I'd be seeing both stores' ranks below 2000 now. Both are up in the 60k and 40k range.

While I've got a #1 tag in the UK with a 1222 rank.

This is just ridiculous.

[Bill Hiatt]

{edit: also,  the response they gave you is the same they've given me when I've called. I don't see customer service helping with this.

This looks like a generic answer. I think people have quoted almost exactly the same text before. It reflects a lack of understanding of what the actual question is.

Possibly not relevant, but AMS claimed credit for ten sales that didn't actually show up as sales for four full days. That seems unusual to me.

[TimothyEllis]

It's about 30 hours since the book released in the US, and it's still getting minor rank changes that reflect the pre-orders.

The Aus store is now coming up to 48 hours and still doing the same thing.

Exactly how far behind are Amazon running ranks these days?

They were supposed to be within 2 hours of sales.

Now they're what? 3 days after?

The UK store is spot on though. 1250 rank there and 2 #1's.

So why are the US and AUS stores so dysfunctional, when the UK store is normal?

[alhawke]

 Sorry to hear it!


US ranking has been wonky for a couple years now, working on one promotion then not working for me on another. My most recent promo seemed fine with US ranking.

Now Australia ranking is up to no good?

I'd love to know why. How does this up and down benefit the Amazon store? Readers or the writers? Or is it literally software issues on their end?  I'm beginning to think it might be.

Hope ranking shows up for you asap, Timothy.

[TimothyEllis]

Just got up, and both US and AUS ranks are now in the 2000's, but that's 48 hours behind for AUS store and 36 odd hours for the US store.

That's just ridiculous.

What whoever decided that was a good idea was thinking is beyond me.

Still locked in a war with Bookbub?

[Bill Hiatt]

Maybe, but I don't know why Amazon would bother. Sure, BookBub may still have an outsized influence on the ranks, but very few authors get BookBubs, and the ones that do don't typically get them all the time. It seems as it the impact overall would be minimal. Screwing up the rankings so that new books that happen to sell well don't get the ranking benefit seems counterproductive.

[alhawke]

Maybe, but I don't know why Amazon would bother. Sure, BookBub may still have an outsized influence on the ranks, but very few authors get BookBubs, and the ones that do don't typically get them all the time. It seems as it the impact overall would be minimal. Screwing up the rankings so that new books that happen to sell well don't get the ranking benefit seems counterproductive.

I agree. I'm beginning to steer away from thinking it's intentional--though I really love a good conspiracy--and think it's just algo/AI incompetence. Something to look forward to more in our AI future. And it makes me wonder--did they change something in the US and it's slowly being introduced internationally? If that'd be true it'll affect all regions eventually. Particularly their large UK market.

[cecilia_writer]

On a smaller scale, I've just had what I like to think of as a successful promo with Fussy Librarian over the weekend and it definitely affected the ranking of the book immediately in both the US and UK stores. I hardly ever run any ads or promotions - I usually
 forget to use the KU free days - but I had entered the book in the UK Kindle Storyteller so I thought I might as well make the effort.
(just waiting for the slump now!)

[alhawke]

On a smaller scale, I've just had what I like to think of as a successful promo with Fussy Librarian over the weekend and it definitely affected the ranking of the book immediately in both the US and UK stores.

Congrats! 

[alhawke]

For those planning promos, be aware ranking is delayed by at least 2 days in the US Amazon (I'm wondering 3 this time?). I've sold 20 books for Princess Sojourn and Harmonia in 2 days so far with my current 3 day promotion. The needle hasn't moved after 2 days with ranking still 300k and 900k.

Interestingly, the sales are trickling unlike a BookBub. So there goes the theory that the system blocks rankings from a sudden surge. Gotta be something else.

[TimothyEllis]

48 hours in the AUS store and still showing a pre-release rank.

Looks like the 2 days delay is now standard.

[alhawke]

Yep. Same for me. My two books on sale finally showed up after 2 days during my promo last  week (US & Intl)

[TimothyEllis]

Yep. Same for me. My two books on sale finally showed up after 2 days during my promo last  week (US & Intl)

I don't understand the thinking behind it.

People won't be finding the books, and if they do, they'll see ranks that suggest the books are not worth reading. That reduces sales in the short term. And means the ranks don't peak properly. So authors miss out on possible shots at the orange tags.

It might be an AMS thing though. They think your AMS ads will keep you selling in the first 2 odd days, before the ranks kick in.

I think the whole delay thing is total madness.

[TimothyEllis]

Update.

Finally some movement in the AUS store. About 50 hours after release. Came down from 24k to 5k just now.

No movement on UK or US stores yet.

[TimothyEllis]

The AUS store froze around that level again, and is actually a bit worse now. No sign of anything related to a new release.

The US and UK stores are 3 days without any movement at all.

It's like new releases are now not getting any rank boost at all, not even from KU downloads.

Has Amazon neutralized all forms of sales and KU spikes now?

A more than 3 day delay seems horribly excessive.

The thing is, the money side is doing just fine, and my AUS rank should be down around 1200, UK rank down around 600, and US rank down below 2500. That's just on the money.

So WTF are Amazon doing with ranks?

[Bill Hiatt]

Well, at least, things are still working for you on the money side.

Is it still possible to get referred up the tech support chain? Back in the day, I did eventually get to someone who knew what was happening. Short of that, I have no idea how to find out what Amazon is up to.

[TimothyEllis]

Well, at least, things are still working for you on the money side.

Is it still possible to get referred up the tech support chain? Back in the day, I did eventually get to someone who knew what was happening. Short of that, I have no idea how to find out what Amazon is up to.

No clue.

Last time I asked about this I was told everything was working.

I assume I'd just get the same now.

[alhawke]

I used to contact Amazon in the past. I've since give up after not having  any luck getting any info or knowledgeable tech support. It's been working, and then not working, for the past two years now without any explanation.,

[TimothyEllis]

I just spent over an hour on help chat.

3 different 'people', but I don't think any of them were real.

They ignored the fact that a books significantly outselling a previous book has a significantly worse rank.

And all they did was quote help system text at me to justify it.

Apparently I am escalated to a supervisors supervisor now, but 24-48 hours to get an email response.

As far as I'm concerned, the Amazon rank system is BROKEN.

It could be the book got broken by the same problem with Pre-orders, but who or whatever I was just chatting with won't even concede that there is a problem.

Nor would they even submit it for further investigation.

Whatever bot system they're using now for chat assistance is broken.

Email assistance was not even an option. Maybe I'll get something in a couple of days, maybe not, but my guess is, I get the same canned responses they parroted at me one by one in the email.

 

They couldn't answer this basic question.

How does a book doing $16 in one day in one store, have a 21k rank, when a book doing $125 in the same day in the same store has a rank of 104k?

They had no answer to that other than 'hidden algorithm'. And the ranks are confirmed correct.

In all respects, the just released book is doing just as well as the previous ones, and should have got down to a rank of better than 2500. Instead, it's never dropped below 103k.

BROKEN!

[TimothyEllis]

I just saw one of Glynn Stewart's books with a #1 New Release tag.

Except it was released back in May, and is currently #9 in the category. The 2nd NR book was #11. The 3rd was #3.

The entire ranking system is BROKEN.

[alhawke]

I just spent over an hour on help chat.
3 different 'people', but I don't think any of them were real.
They ignored the fact that a books significantly outselling a previous book has a significantly worse rank.
And all they did was quote help system text at me to justify it.

One of the worse things with Amazon is speaking with their help desk and being quoted stuff that everyone on this forum already knows. Great for some newbie trying to publish their first book, but, really, quoting a bunch of protocols does absolutely nothing for us. It's why I dread calling them.

It's quite possible that their help desk doesn't know why ranking is faltering. It's probably higher up or more to do with the programming.

Actually, maybe AI is running Amazon now and no human knows? 

[TimothyEllis]

So last night I uploaded a new version of the book to correct a goof, and today I find all my ranks are what they should be for 5 days in.

I got an email from a supervisor as well, asking for a time to talk on the phone. Not sure that will happen now, but I'll see if I get a call.

It seems that as soon as a book comes off pre-order now, you need to upload it again to get ranks functional.

Lesson learned.

[alhawke]

It seems that as soon as a book comes off pre-order now, you need to upload it again to get ranks functional.

That's concerning.

I think I recall weird stuff happening to ranking after preorder goes live . Maybe we should be clicking re-publish the day of launch? Seems weird, but if it works...

[TimothyEllis]

After my previous launch, I got notified of the sort of goof that causes embarrassment, so I fixed it within hours of the book coming out of lock.

That book had a more normal rank journey.

The one before was stuck for days as well, and again, I could get no-one to address it. And from memory, it came out of it again, after I uploaded a corrected book.

So it is seeming like some books are not coming out of pre-order properly.

I'm adding a reload with a higher version number to my release procedure notes now for next time.

[TimothyEllis]

Now this is interesting.

I finally got to BookReport today and it pushed me into logging into KDP, and my preorders for the weekend release have gone up by 2.

So not only ranks had a problem, now fixed by re-uploading, but the pre-orders weren't being reported properly either.

[Bill Hiatt]

That's not great--but at least, it's better to know what's happening and have a way of addressing it than not to have any idea.

[TimothyEllis]

This is unbelievable. From KDP.

Hello,

I'm Ranesh one of the Customer Support Manager at Amazon KDP.

I understand your concern about sales ranking.

You have posted Quetions about why 191 pre-orders was not applied to the book, downloads for 48743 KENP pages on the 14th didn't change the rank at all and explain why the rank went from 104,000 (rounded) down to 3500 (rounded) without that level of sales and KU downloads to support it on that day.

The sales of the books or downloads of KENP pages does no directly generate the sales rank for a book.

There are many factors that influence the sales rank, like the look inside, A+ content, keyword, categories and search activity on your book etc.

Sales rank are updated with reflect of recent and historical activity, with recent activity weighted more heavily. Rankings are relative, so your sales rank can change even when your book's level of activity stays the same. For example, even if your book's level of activity stays the same, your rank may improve if other books see a decrease in activity, or your rank may drop if other books see an increase in activity.

When the the rank went from 104,000 down to 3500 then you might felt that might be a glitch or lag in the system, I can understand that, some times there might be a lag but not for like 6 days as you mentioned.

I have double checked the ranking for this book Asin's now B0F9DP8PD3 & B0F6YP26KY and it shows the ranking is accurate, further we are unable to take any action in this case as the ranking is working as designed now.

Thanks for using Amazon KDP,

Your feedback helps us improve our service.

Ranesh
Kindle Direct Publishing
http://kdp.amazon.com

Does that sound like a bot answer to you?

It does to me.

Sales and KU downloads don't actually contribute to rank?

Serious WTF?

There's a rate button. This time I'm going to use it.

[alhawke]

Yeah, it has that chat gpt sound to it , doesn't it? Alternatively, could be a human copying and pasting a script. Either way, it's not helpful.

PS: let me know, Timothy, if you start making it a thing to re-publish on launch day. You publish more books than me. If that works for you, I can easily do that too. Trouble is, as Amazon loves changing things, what could work now might not work later.

[Bill Hiatt]

The sales of the books or downloads of KENP pages does no directly generate the sales rank for a book.

There are many factors that influence the sales rank, like the look inside, A+ content, keyword, categories and search activity on your book etc.

If this is even remotely true, Amazon has lost its mind. The description above sounds more like an activity rank or a view rank. I could see Amazon doing that--but not as a sales rank. Sales rank should reflect sales and KU borrows only.

But I guess now I'm even more glad that I added A+ content...

[alhawke]

I totally glossed over that KU comment.

KU not affecting rank? It used to for my KU books. That was one of the big advantages to Amazon KU. It ranked easier. Now it doesn't? Huh 

[TimothyEllis]

The sales of the books or downloads of KENP pages does no directly generate the sales rank for a book.

There are many factors that influence the sales rank, like the look inside, A+ content, keyword, categories and search activity on your book etc.

If this is even remotely true, Amazon has lost its mind. The description above sounds more like an activity rank or a view rank. I could see Amazon doing that--but not as a sales rank. Sales rank should reflect sales and KU borrows only.

But I guess now I'm even more glad that I added A+ content...

I think that is how they do category ranks now. Because those ranks make no sense at all anymore.

The chat I had with supposedly 3 different people went off onto category rank unexpectedly. A new 'supervisor' just started talking about category rank without any prompting that way.

I think the bot can't tell the difference between Amazon rank and category rank.

And every time they checked the ranks, I bet they were checking category ranks, not Amazon rank.

I responded to that email by calling the person a bot, and gave a 1 star rating because zero stars was not available. I got a thank you for rating back.  That had to be a bot. A person would have been insulted.

We always knew Amazon was at the front of the the using bots wave, but now it seems they've replaced their Indian help centers with answer bots as well. Or at best, the help centers are just using Amazon's Chat Bot for all answers.

So, yeah. Next book I'll upload again the moment I've done the Audiobook, and report what happens with ranks. That will be in 2-3 weeks.

[Bill Hiatt]

I totally glossed over that KU comment.

KU not affecting rank? It used to for my KU books. That was one of the big advantages to Amazon KU. It ranked easier. Now it doesn't? Huh 

The response doesn't say that KU doesn't affect rank. It says that many factors do. But why category ranks should be dictated by so many extraneous considerations puzzles me.

If Amazon wants to have a metric that reflects engagement with various parts of the product page, there's nothing wrong with that. But they shouldn't take existing metrics that used to mean something different and repurposing them without comment. This only confuses customers.

[alhawke]

Hidden Gems' blog post via email indicated that Amazon's new ranking rules is 1-3 days for an update. This totally messes up stacked promotions... but encourages spread-out marketing. As far as new releases, a steady approach with ads seems best. I'm guessing this is all being done to discourage bestseller runs?? And to discourage the one day rush from a BookBub promo. I think it's probably a bad thing for Indie writers cause most of us don't have the marketing capital that big publishers do to push longstanding ads, but I'm still mulling this over in my mind.

Anyway, this has been happening for years as, probably, a beta rollout. It totally messed up one of 2 of my Bookbubs over the past three years. Now it appears to be becoming the new normal. I don't have an official statement by Amazon, so this is heresay, but most authors on the grapevine are saying this is their latest experience over the past couple months.

[Lorri Moulton]

If an ebook is ALWAYS free, then it won't matter much. By the time the rankings catch up, the sell through should still work.

If an ebook is only free for a few days, by the time the rankings catch up, the book is no longer free and never sees that boost.

For 99c promos, I haven't heard good things lately...but maybe that's just in Facebook groups?

ETA: Mostly WIDE author groups.  Might work better for KU. 

[TimothyEllis]

Another odd thing.

My last release has picked up an additional 8 pre-orders on the reports, staggering in over 4 days.

So the pre-order system wasn't displaying them properly in the reports across the period when this book was released.

The whole pre-order back end was probably broken and Amazon as usual just denies anything was wrong.

I've added resubmitting the book immediately after the audiobook creation immediately after coming out of lock to my publishing task list for next time. Not taking the chance of this happening again.

[TimothyEllis]

So releasing a new book at the moment.

I did a resubmit on my book as soon as it came out of lockdown.

Then got some obvious goofs I needed to fix immediately, so uploaded and submitted again as soon as it was out of that lockdown.

The AUS store just went from 30kish down to 2kish, so that is very promising that a resubmit solves the rank problem.

I'll know if it solves UK and US when I get up tomorrow. US will probably take a while to come through anyway.

[alhawke]

This is big news, Timothy. Let me know if you see any effect with US.  I'll probably do the same with my upcoming preorder releases. Couldn't hurt 

As I'm remembering, I've seen other problems with categories with preorders before too. This resubmit might be a good solution for now.

[TimothyEllis]

This is big news, Timothy. Let me know if you see any effect with US.

US down from 51k to 8k. UK down from 43k to 3k.

AUS now 1352. But what it got to during the night is anyone's guess.

Not sure what the delay is, but there is still one going on.

But they seem on track to me.

So the resubmit thing does seem to work. I just don't know the trigger though. Could be the resubmit, or the version number change. Or both.

[TimothyEllis]

US has taken all day to come down to 2k.

So things seem to be working somewhat normally with a reload after release.

[TimothyEllis]

Next book release, and the ranks seem to be reacting a bit faster now.

Whereas last time, about 3 weeks ago, the book didn't get any real rank move until monday, Aus time, this time the movement was there sunday lunchtime. Not as good as I hope they get to, but a start.

The thing I did differently, was before submitting the book with version 1 instead of not specified, which is what I did last time, this time I got notified of 3 goofs before I did the submit, so had to upload a corrected version.

Lo and behold, the ranks started changing. Before I went to bed last night (3.30am EST AUS.) and thus about 27 hours after publishing in AUS, and about 8 hours after submitting again, the AUS rank dropped a lot. Too early for UK and US though.

It's still guessing what's going on, and Amazon might be still tweaking the time delay, but it seems like if you modify the book as soon as it comes out of lockdown, and then resubmit the modified version, the pre-order rank bug is reset.

[alhawke]

The thing I did differently, was before submitting the book with version 1 instead of not specified, which is what I did last time, this time I got notified of 3 goofs before I did the submit, so had to upload a corrected version.

I wonder if you have to changes to the new version? Or, can you just hit the republish button?

My ranking was slowed by 1-2 days throughout the last last two weeks of my sale in, pretty much, all markets.

As an aside, sales on KDP reports are also delayed by about 12 hours. I republished my books today at higher price and got sales reports 12 hours later of books still sold a the lower earlier price.