Same Product Different Text

[Zob1]

I know there must be a thread about this already, but I can't find it.

I was searching for a product of mine in the marketplace, and found it way down on page 9 of results.

Another creator is dominating those keyword results with a single design but alternate text (brother, nephew, cousin etc, lots of numerical ages and so on). On those first 9 pages of 60 results each, per page this design appears: 6 times, 26, 55, 47, 49, 15, 5, 38, and 1. That's 242 almost identical products out of 540 (and that's just where I stopped counting).

This is surely considered spamming? If so, what can be done?

[Windy]

On the product page, under OTHER INFO there is a button for REPORT THIS DESIGN. I reported a bunch of absolutely egregious problems (not the same situation you describe) and I kept meticulous track of these. I found that after a couple of years, two or three of the reported designs did get removed from the marketplace. I had reported about fifty and It really did take a couple of years....So in other words, that button has not been very effective for me. Maybe there is a better way to communicate with whoever is in charge of Zazzle spamming control.

[Zob1]

Thanks Windy, yes, I wasn't sure if 'product spamming' qualified under any of the reporting categories (EDIT: I can't see an appropriate category for this under the 'report' function).

I've reported some inappropriate tags in the past and didn't see anything removed, but I didn't have your patience to check two years later.

My sales have stopped entirely. In this instance I think it's partly down to an influx of AI designs, and my lack of cover images; but 242 identical products shoving my single product down the results and into oblivion can't be helping 🙁

[Windy]

It's very discouraging. I have read many explanations as to why so many Zazzlers are seeing a sharp drop in sales. What  I believe is that everything Zazzle has done, is an effort to counteract what Google has done. Google made some kind of a major change to algorithm in late 2023, which is about when people started seeing the sharp drops. The goal of that Google action was to clean up the search results because so many similar items were rising to the top in Google results.

This would be worth looking into if you want to investigate and learn more about it and see whether there is action you can take  to get some of your products back into Google results. I don't have a perfect article to share about all this, but I think what we might all want to learn more about is the 2023 Google Core update.

[MOM]

Hmm. I actually just recently seen (or better heard) a YouTube video of an influencer recommending exactly that matter of posting on Zazzle. Can’t remember right now which one it was because I consumed so many YouTube videos and I usually just have them run on the iPhone while I do other things (like dishes, cleaning the litter box or whatever). 🤔

[Windy]

That method obviously works. Maybe I should try it.