Tag Spamming & Tag Relevance

[ashleyh]

Just did a search for "vintage wedding invitations" and guess what 99% of the results all have in common?

Not vintage in the slightest...And mostly florals.

You don't even get to ANY that have a vintage style to them until the second page where it still is 90% FLORAL for that page and all of the following.

And upon digging further I find it is the same Stores over and over that seem to have just thrown all kinds of "keywords" into their tags like fishing bait so they can try and hook anything that comes by. I'm sure this happens to other areas as well. It's quite frustrating. 

A google search brings up the appropriate results for Zazzle invitations that are ACTUALLY of a vintage style so I guess we should be thankful Google can filter out the IRRELAVANT results and show the customer what they are actually searching for.

What happened to tag spam penalties? design relevance? etc

If someone has to sort through a few pages of irrelevant designs before they find yours, chances are they will move on to another site or decide those styles are just not "out there".

[ashleyh]

Note: Wasn't sure where to stick this as I doubt Zazzle themselves have a solution or the time to catch all of the offenders. Just more venting I guess LOL

[CreativeLeahG]

It's a tricky one. 

Looking at my own items with 'vintage' tag, they are to mind definitely vintage theme and I am sure you and Zazzle would agree. I also would not regard the current top ranked selection as 'vintage'. However, it is possible as creatives we have different ideas re what the term represents. It is possible they consider vintage in the context of invitations to represent a more traditional typset or layout? 

In my mind regarding vintage florals as a tag, the design would need to reflect  'vintage floral graphics ' or perhaps a vintage style border, vintage style typography and so on. Decoupage, shabby chic, perhaps a vintage type background paper, botanical line art, ornamental borders ...  As such I do agree that the possible 'interpretations' re what is classified as vintage is going to make search harder for customers if they are similarly seeking what I would be using this tag.

Meanwhile, what do you feel best represents 'retro' with regards to what a customer might be seeking when they use that tag?  I ask as when designers critique tags I wonder how they use their tags and a quick peep at the first design on your store shows you using 'retro' to describe your graduation invite. To my mind there is nothing 'retro' about the design but for you there perhaps is?

I personally might expect to see forties/fifties style of design (perhaps due to my age). There are retro colors which are quite flat , less saturated .. orange, lime, brown a turquoise (egg shell) blue, a rather specific shade of red and green and so on. Certain style of pattern ... thick stripe and of course typography styles which reflect the era etc.

Perhaps going forward Zazzle could layout how it would like the various terms to be represented so in future we can be more mindful re this. Especially as Zazzle now has 'type of invite' categories on main page.

[ashleyh]

Hi there! I looked at both sets of my grad invites and did not see retro in the tags (granted I did not look at every single one, just one of each type) and did not see retro. What's funny is that I now do feel the need to put retro in one set because the drop down gold balls do make me feel a retro vibe!

EDIT: Just looked and saw none of them have retro as a tag?

And yes, you have beautiful and fun vintage designs, nice job!

EDIT2: Okay so it is not in the tags, it is in the description of the embellishments used in the design (the ones I said I should use retro in LOL)! However, I am not talking about one-offs that not everyone may "get", this post is about people who's tags are "floral vintage bohemian fall elegant" all in one tag and who's subsequent tags share the same tone.

[CreativeLeahG]

My sincere apologies it is in the description, which would also result in the design showing up for a search re 'retro'.  My brain must have been doing a number on me! 

Meanwhile to add to my earlier comment, with regards to reporting people for tags, I myself usually do so for trademark and copyright infringements or for very obvious cases where they might say 'gold, pink, blue, vintage, retro, abstract, shabby chic' for a plain black and white invite. That would be a case of 'throwing every term' into tags in hopes of a hit case, and I have seen a few of those. Otherwise I give the benefit of doubt due to the potential for subjectivity and naivity re what a certain 'design' represents. It is very tricky but yes, we and consumers could definitely benefit from greater clarity. How google is able to differentiate ... the mind boggles! And thank you for the compliment.

[ashleyh]

You're right, designs have a lot of space for subjectivity. I think I can use this as a reminder to do the research and be as mindful as I can about the tags AND descriptions I am putting on my products. 

[CreativeLeahG]

Me too! I have to do a lot of edits. Also mistakes can happen, when using existing templates for new designs, one can forget to remove a certain tag etc. Tags is the hardest to get right I feel, for many reasons. 

Another issue re tags could be for those for whom English is a second language. They may not fully know what Bohemian represents as an example?

[igiftcenter]

Just a note: regarding vintage vs retro

I think I remember that
vintage actually means something that is authentic from an era that is at least 20 years ago
retro actually means a new item that has been made to imitate / emulate items from the past

However in real life conversation I have seen both used in so many different ways that it's hard to pin down what any designer might mean or intend using these keywords since the terms these days are used very loosely.  Good luck sorting that out 🙂

[KeegansCreation]

It's a tough one with subjective adjectives. The wall-of-adjectives method of tagging where every tag is 4 or 5 words I sure do consider spam but I don't know how you combat it other than set limits on multi word tags. That would force people to be choosier about their tags but what should those limits be? No more than 3 words? No more than 4? 
I personally only use "retro" for designs that use elements or palettes popular in the 1930's-1980's range and "vintage" for those before that. But that is a self made definition and not one that others would necessarily adhere to. I was flummoxed by the term "modern vintage" (a popular tag) that seemed a contradiction to me but another designer pointed out that it referred to a currently popular (thus "modern") style of vintage collage that uses legit vintage elements and typography on a background that looks like old paper. It's quite popular for tissue paper and now I've done it myself. But I would consider it spam for watercolor flowers and no vintage elements. 

[Cat]

I think it's a super tricky subject, because not only does each designer's interpretation of various terms vary, so does each customer's!  Words like "vintage" "rustic" and "elegant" - they really have different meanings to different people, and I'm not sure that it would help for Zazzle to come up with uniform definitions, because their customers might not share the same ideas of what the words mean.

Silly as this may sound, I also think that the age of the person using the words matters too. Something that I might think of as "modern" a younger person might think of as "vintage" or "retro." Gah! Ultimately, any time you have to use words to describe an image you're going to run into problems because you're basically just trying to get into the mind of the customer and think what words they would use to describe it.

[shellifitz]

This is upsetting to me as some of my wedding designs are vintage... I am not likely to show up in the first page of results for my relevant tags because of this.  oh well

[CreativeLeahG]

@ashleyh @shellifitz @Cat @KeegansCreation 

I have created a 'show me' thread for vintage inspired wedding invitations to help them be 'seen'https://community.zazzle.com/t5/show-me/vintage-inspired-wedding-invitations-show-us-yours/m-p/13387...

.

[Westerngirl2]

It seems to me that tag spamming is taking over Zazzle, and I don't see anything being done about it.

About 3 weeks ago, I sent several e-mails to the Z team letting them know about some blatant tag spamming that is occurring in massive numbers. I found it because I was making some new mugs with a dog theme, and I have a habit of checking a few days later to make sure the product has reached the MP. In this instance, I searched for "German Shepherd Dog mug", and then sorted the results by newest. I got pages and pages of mugs that had absolutely nothing to do with dogs, let alone a German Shepherd. Motivational, funny sayings....lots of stuff that looked like it may have come from one of the on-line sites that sell those types of t-shirt and mug designs. It took me almost 8 pages to find my new mug. The spammed tag ones really stood out, because they all had the same color of brown background. But the funny thing is that they were created in different stores. BUT....the stores generally had the same type of name that included lower case letters of what appeared to be a first name and last name run together. Very odd. When I went to the individual products, the tag spamming was obvious, with all sorts of descriptions all run together just to include a mountain of words that a customer might search for....very little of it relating to dogs. The descriptions written were all identical, too, even though the products I looked at were supposedly from different stores. You can see what I'm talking about right now if you do the same search I did, sorting by newest, and then paging on to maybe page 6 or 7, as other creators have added new designs, and this (these?) spammers have moved on...last I checked they were doing the same thing to tote bags. If you do check some of these, be sure to look at the creator name on the individual products, too. Interesting.

When I didn't even get an e-mail back from the Z team, I got discouraged and gave up even looking. It's very, very disheartening to legitimate creator businesses.

[ashleyh]

Oh my goodness that was a hot mess search. And yes, so terribly disheartening...

[Marcia]

@Westerngirl2 Yes, I've also noticed that in my past searches. I often also do the same mp search once my new products show up. For some of my categories, there are endless pages of this crap. Initially, I started reporting everything, but after 2 or 3 pages worth I gave up. It's absolutely not fair to us legitimate designers.

[Westerngirl2]

Yes, I do not understand why it is allowed to continue. The tags often have absolutely nothing to do with the actual product, which is what I always thought was the definition of tag spamming. And the fact that the stores are almost identical, especially in type of their names, often going back to just one or a few different "creators", with almost identical item descriptions, and the same type of tag spamming. Someone is gaming the system, it would appear. And it must be very frustrating to customers when they are looking for a specific thing....not good all the way around.

[shellifitz]

I think these are bot accounts and I said as much in my reports.  Maybe more of us need to report them.  when I searched your same search they started on page 4 of the newest sort.  by tomorrow you will probably have to go to page 6 to find them.  They are really obvious though and when the paid google ads pop up on the pages I see the same designs in the ads on different sites... these look like stuff you would see on alibaba.  I hate to see Zazzle turn into a site like that! 

[CrazyMermaid]

What do you mean by bot account? I am not sure if you are referring to the entity that owns the store or product creation. I am curious.

[shellifitz]

Automated store creation and product creation making multiple accounts that funnel to one entity. 

[PAZP]

Interesting. I just did the search of your search term with and without the quotes. With the quotes, it's one short page of all German Shepherd mugs with a few cards and tees. Without the quotes I see all Shepherd mugs on the first three pages. I wonder why it's a different view for me? I'm using Bravo browser but that shouldn't make a difference. 

[Westerngirl2]

Without the quotes, there are 17 pages, and over 6,000 items. But you have to page on to at least page 5, 6, 7, or beyond to see the mugs in question, as they have aged some and don't come up on the first pages when you sort by newest.

I wonder why there's a difference between using the quote marks or not. I've never used quote marks before in a search, so I wasn't aware of that. Anyone know?

[ashleyh]

Found the following during a google search

Exact Phrase Search is now live! - Zazzle News

https://forum.zazzle.com › news › exact_phrase_search_is...

Aug 3, 2016 · 1 post · 1 author

What is exact phrase search? Well, by wrapping your search term in quotes you can now search for products that contain only that exact phrase

Unfortunately, clicking it just takes you to the new community forum homepage.

Also, I don't know anyone personally who regularly uses quotations when doing internet searches. I doubt the majority of customers do either.

[shellifitz]

I found them and will spend a few minutes reporting, I also see what you mean about the stores names and designer names.  They look like bot accounts to me.  or just copycats. 

[ashleyh]

Did you sort by new products or was your search parameter left at popular?

[PAZP]

You nailed it. Once I changed the parameter to new it's a mess. Lots of mugs with no relevance to German Shepherd dogs. 

[Cat]

@Westerngirl2 Very strange. When I do that search I get a bunch of mugs with German Shepherds on them (using Windows 10 & Edge.) I'm not sure how it works with Zazzle because they have their own search algorithm, but in general when you put quotes around something in a search, it searches for that exact phrase rather than just any of the words in the phrase. With quotes I get 59 results, without I get 4968. I went through the first 10 pages of the larger search and everything I get looks relevant. Maybe they caught and removed the spammer?

[Westerngirl2]

I'm still finding plenty of tag spammed products up & available. If you go into the stores on those products found during that search, and look at their products, they have the same type of spamming. I can't understand, though, why folks are getting different search results. I wonder what the customers get?

[orientcourt]

Hi Ashleyh, what is your Zazzle store name? Jilly

[shellifitz]

I wish every real creator would spend a few minutes making a report on some of these tag stuffers.  They are easy to find more once you find one... just look at similar designs or search one of their own tags.  

[Zob1]

This is totally demoralising. I've just searched for a product of mine, located down on page 5 (or 299th out of 513). I discovered four other creators (and there could be more) strongly represented around and above me in the search with multiple products, simple pasting the same unrelated tags, two of those creators stuffing every tag with five words, mostly unrelated, sometimes not even mentioning the main subject of their design.

It's tough enough to get noticed on Zazzle alongside vast legitimate, quality competition. I suspect that reporting a single product for inappropriate tags might see that single product temporarily removed; but these creators are serial offenders with those inappropriate tags on every product they've put the design on. Surely there's an argument for suspending an entire store or a creator who's having such a wholesale, negative impact on search accuracy, user experience, and honest creators?

[Kevi]

If you search for "Halloween t-shirts" you will find Superman and Wonder Woman at the top. Batman must be squirming at that.

[Windy]

Recently some more information about this tag spam situation has come to light. https://community.zazzle.com/t5/ideas-suggestions/combating-tag-spammers/idi-p/20716

[Westerngirl2]

Windy, that link worked for me earlier today. I read the input and offered new information, and so did at least one other creator. But now, that link tells me I don't have "sufficient privileges" and access is denied.

Very curious. Can anyone else access that thread?

[shellifitz]

nope me either, I was just reading it a while ago and may have even left a comment... can't remember now. 

[Harmony]

I am getting the same error

[shellifitz]

The thread is missing from my notifications list as well so it looks like it was either hidden or deleted.  

[Westerngirl2]

Would be much appreciated if we could get an explanation; I didn't see anything in the thread that was troublesome, except for all the spamming problems that we identified.

What we identified were situations where Zazzle's own rules are being blatantly broken.

So what gives? Please?

Thank you.

[Windy]

Interesting. Yes, the thread has been removed or locked or something, apparently with no explanation as to why. Maybe an explanation will be made tomorrow. I had seen and read your responses to the thread @Westerngirl2 and @shellifitz I am hoping the fact that the thread is gone means someone is going to take action.

[Scott]

The discussion was removed from public view because a user decided to post the full names of many other Zazzle Creators.

I had posted in the discussion asking Shelli for examples of other users who did not have a name attached to their account. I'm pretty sure that this was because the user simply hadn't added a name just yet, but I'm open to reviewing the situation. I assumed that I would receive a link to a member account without a name, at which point I could review the situation. Instead, I found that a user had gone out of their way to post a lengthy list of full names of Zazzle Creators, which is not something that we tolerate. We found this action was inappropriate, and moved the discussion to a private area for further review.

I absolutely understand that this topic is frustrating to read about, especially if you're someone who has worked super hard to land your products on Page 1 of a popular search results page. At the same time, we absolutely CANNOT allow anyone here to call out other users by name in any sort of accusatory fashion. There are simply no exceptions to this.

As always, if you see something that concerns you then please contact us privately, either via Zazzle Chat or via email.

[Westerngirl2]

Scott, I've sent several e-mails concerning this, but never received a response. Perhaps I have the wrong e-mail address? Could you give me an e-mail that you would see, as I've done a bit of research on this, and would really like you to take a look at some of this.

Thanks!