Seeing is Believing Etsy, but.......

As of 6/18/09, saralouhicks has finally posted a lengthy response to the SEO debacle in this forum post

EB certainly applauds the corrections to SEO search titles that Etsy promises to put in place (though it is copying Artfire yet again), but we’ve been around the block a few too many times with Etsy. Promises that arrive many days after the issue became the hot seller topic in cyberspace just don’t come across as all that sincere. We’ll believe it when we see it. (And wait with bated breath for the next nutty idea.)

Meanwhile, the damage already done will live on, and the negative publicity surrounding Etsy’s latest faux pas will add to the pile of mistrust constructed by Etsy’s inability and stubborn unwillingness to communicate with their sellers BEFORE they implement dramatic branding and marketing changes that affect every single seller on the site. This time they went too far.

We’d like to point out that Sara’s conclusion is a little off the mark:

We read that some of you believe our initial SEO approach was deceitful or mal-intentioned. This is not true.

While Etsy’s "initial SEO approach" may not have been mal-intentioned or even malicious, it WAS DONE WITHOUT seller input and without beta-testing. Disrespectful and deceitful, yes.

It was also done with COMPLETE DISINTEREST in how it might affect the sellers on Etsy.

It was done with the explicit intention of benefitting Etsy’s merchandising and branding plan and boosting Etsy’s numbers in search and search results. It was NOT done to provide a better search tool to send buyers to individual sellers (since the seller names fell off the Search grid). The proof is in the fewer views and fewer sales pudding.

The complete disconnect between Etsy and its sellers couldn’t be more evident.

OMFG!!1!!! ETSY LISTENED???

ETSY HAS CAVED! ALERT! ETSY HAS CAVED! Last page numbers are being added.

Sellers this victory is yours! New VP of Product Development, Saralouhicks, just wrote this post in the Etsy Forums:

saralouhicks says:
I was planning to write a post this week to say hello and introduce myself. With the many threads about our pagination changes I figured now was as good a time as any. I'll keep the intro brief. My name is Sara and I've very recently come on board as Etsy's VP of Product Management. I love to make things. My designs happen to come in the form of technology and, in the case of Etsy, it comes in the form of a pretty big (and exciting) website! I truly admire and respect the beautiful work of Etsy sellers and can't tell you how happy I am to have the chance to work with you all. I hope to provide a more complete introduction for myself and the Product Management Team at a later date (who we are, what we do at Etsy), but for now I will jump right in to the topic of the week: pagination.

Last week we made a seemingly small change to the way page numbers appear on search results and category pages to display as "1 2 3 4 5 ... < >". Our goal with this change was to address an issue we've heard buyers express: being overwhelmed with the sheer number of results listed. We made this change based on information from a variety of sources, which included traffic data, usability testing and the best practices of other e-commerce sites. While our data shows this change hasn't substantially impacted traffic patterns, the feedback we've received from the community has been clear. We took time to reevaluate this decision and listen to what is being said in the Forums and in emails we've gotten about the change. Some valid points were raised, which include:

SEARCH: The way current search results are displayed (ranking) is based on chronology (most recently listed items first). We believe Etsy would be better served by a system that takes into account both ranking and relevance in a more sophisticated way. In retrospect, the change we made to pagination would have been more appropriately introduced with the introduction of a new ranking and a relevancy-based system.

JUMP TO: There is a "jump to" box at the bottom of search results category pages, but without knowing how many pages there are, it's illogical to jump to a page deeper in the results. If the shopper jumps too far, they meet a message that says "we didn't find anything."

In light of these two critical points, we've decided to reformat the pagination display to include the last page number again (such as it appears here in the Forums). The Etsy engineering team is working on this right now, but we have testing to go through yet. We are aiming to release the change before the end of the week.

I want to apologize for the way in which this change was launched. With the changes to the search system coming up in the new year, we may revisit the pagination display, but I assure you that we will take into better consideration how pagination supports the overall functionality of search.

I'm very much looking forward to partnering with you to make Etsy the most meaningful place to shop on the web. Thank you for your constructive and passionate feedback. We are continually listening and reading.

Sara

There you go. All but admission of Etsy being rash and shortsighted, and the fact that they have a sucky ass search made what they did even worse.

Hey Sara, you want to partner with us? How about revisiting this idea: FIX SEARCH!! Give us Tools! Take the money we give you and give US something in return. (Oh, and keep your dirty mitts off our page numbers!)