Op Ed — Opinions and Editorials
Random Ramblings — Problems with Searching Amazon: You Can’t Always Find What You Want Column Editor: Bob Holley (Professor Emeritus, Wayne State University, 13303 Borgman Avenue, Huntington Woods, MI 48070-1005; Phone: 248-547-0306) <aa3805@wayne.edu>
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’ve been selling books on Amazon for eleven years and was sometimes confused by not finding items through a well formulated search but then serendipitously discovering them in some unexpected way. Only in February 2020 did I decide to investigate this issue more systematically. From a posting to an Amazon Forum, I learned that I wasn’t the only one who has encountered this problem. Earlier, at the 2020 ALA Midwinter, I talked to one acquisitions librarian who told me that this issue was common knowledge. I was unable, however, to find any confirmation in Library & Information Source or through Google searching though the lack of results may have been my failure to identify the correct search terms. Not finding items that exist in the Amazon database due to searching “glitches” affects both librarians and booksellers everywhere. As buyers, librarians are looking to purchase needed items. As sellers, both librarians and booksellers wish to find Amazon records to list their items. Creating a new record is much more difficult than appending the seller’s copy to an existing record and further diminishes the usefulness of the database by adding a duplicate record.
Defining the Problem
The problem is not the result of a searching mistake. The searching sequence was as follows: 1. I searched for the item using multiple search terms. 2. I didn’t find the item and put it aside. 3. I found the item later by trying another search strategy or through serendipity. 4. The record that I found included search terms that I used in step 1 so that I should have discovered it then. 5. Retrying the searching strategy in step 1 sometimes still does not retrieve the item so that changes in the database do not completely explain my success in step 3. In other words, the problem is not a searching mistake on my part or problems with the record from misspelling or other errors in the database. To reiterate, I used terms in step 1 that should have worked because they matched data in the record that I ultimately found.
Different Ways to Search in Amazon.com and Searching Conventions
The most accessible way to search for an item is the search area in the Amazon retail screen. It is possible to search in “All Departments” or in specific areas such as “Books,” “CD & Vinyl,” “Movies and TV,” and many
36 Against the Grain / June 2020
other options. Amazon presents results first in the indicated department followed by matches in other departments and then by various combinations of the words used in multi-word searches. An “Advanced Search” tool is available for books that is similar to those in many library databases. This option offers eleven searchable fields of which the most important are Keywords, Author, Title, ISBN, Publisher, and Publication Date. A third search is available only to sellers. In “Amazon Central Seller,” the “Catalog” and “Inventory” options lead to a drop-down menu that includes the choice to search for existing records to which the sellers can add their copies. If the seller doesn’t find a match, another link leads to the form to “Create a new listing.” Amazon provides the following document on “Using search terms effectively” at https://sellercentral. amazon.com/gp/help/help.html?itemID=G23501&language=en_US. Most of the rules would be familiar to librarians. One disconcerting rule, however, is You don’t need punctuation, such as: “;”, “:”, “-”.”. even though using quotations marks is the normal convention to search for exact multiword expressions. In practice, Amazon does apply this convention to searches. I routinely use quotation marks for precise searching. For example, “music for children folk songs” retrieves six items while music for children folk songs returns “over 1,000 results.” In a similar fashion, applying the rule “Use singular or plural, no need for both” is a bad idea since following this rule returns different and less accurate results. I fault Amazon for providing this incorrect information. Finally, Amazon provides a list of “Related articles” on the left of the search helps page, but they have little relevance for this column.
Using Creative Search Strategies I have discovered two other creative strategies for finding items where the multiple search strategies in the section above retrieved no records. The first is using AddAll — Used and Out of Print Search at http://used. addall.com/. As of February 8, 2020, this meta-search engine queries twenty-two used book sites for matches, including Amazon.com and its foreign affiliates. At one point, the site claimed access to 40 million records, but this figure no longer appears on the main searching page. I use this site frequently to determine my next steps when I don’t find an Amazon.com record. I have been surprised at times to find a listing for a book on Amazon.com that my prior searching didn’t find. I would then click through to this record to add my listing to the Amazon database. For the searcher not interested in comparative prices, AddAll can be set to continued on page 38
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