Tag spamming & what happens afterwards

[LauraLee]

I recently did a search for "cow t-shirt", and I thought that we are supposed to use the - sign to remove unwanted search items that pop up with what you want.  Apparently that doesn't work anymore....?  For example, I would use "cow t-shirt -chicken" in my mp search. 

But what I wanted to say also is that tag spamming hurts those who don't tag spam.  For whatever reason it happens, it continues to happen.  And there ought to be some kind of algorithm that either catches it when it's being posted for sale.  Or, it puts new designs thru a later algorithm that generally verifies these tags and warns creators about them.

  They're getting more and more common and seem to get outright ridiculous.  And what happens is that a few people report a few here and there, some don't do anything at all, and some get the feeling that nothing happens when it's reported.  For that reason, I can't see how Zazzle depends on creators to report them.  Is it making any difference?  

[KeegansCreation]

Aggravating as it is, I don't think an algorithm could catch any but a certain type of tag spam. Knowing that something is tag spam depends (usually) on being able to verify that the tags are relevant to the design, something only a human can do. The one kind of spam I think it could catch is multi-occasion spam. If somebody has put in a string of occasions (birthday + Fathers Day+ Mothers Day+ Christmas) which I've seen sometimes then that could be caught. But that could still be worth something.

There is something peculiar about searches. Based on your post, I put "cow" in search and it gave me half cow designs and half watches. None of these watches chosen at random had "cow" in the tags, title or description. They all had a leather band but the product description merely had the word "leather". Does the algorithm conflate the word "cow" with the word "leather" so long as it's actual leather? It looks like it does. Searching on "leather" brings up faux leather products too along with the watches. That sort of search algorithm shenanigans looks like tag spam even though it isn't. I wish there was a way to remove watches from the search that did not also require choosing a department, a department other than accessories which keeps you mired in watches. I didn't know there ever was a way but there sure isn't now.

[Windy]

Good topic. This reminds me that I have a set of 44 products I had reported for egregious tag spam starting some 18 months ago. I check that set whenever someone mentions tag spam in the forums. One of the 44 products I have reported over an eighteen month has been removed from the Zazzle marketplace. 

[FloridaDesigner]

@Windy  "One of the 44 products I have reported over an eighteen month has been removed from the Zazzle marketplace."   ONE???  So sad!   

[randysgrandma]

I reported tag spam one time when I was frustrated that most of the products I pulled up during a search were of the same design on different products that had nothing at all to do with the item I was searching for. The products in question stopped showing in that particular search. I can only assume Zazzle did something. 

[Malissa]

There is a thread about it from a month ago in the tech forum, but no response as of yet.  It is here.  I hope this gets fixed as well!

[Scott]

The discussion Malissa linked to above is about the RSS feed, not marketplace search. These are different.

[shellifitz]

Where in the OP does she mention rss feeds?  I saw that she said MP search...  but even so, tag spam is even worse  when you are an affiliate trying to pull products from a feed for something like an IFTTT applet.  

[Scott]

Sorry, poor wording on my end. I updated my post.

[Malissa]

Sorry for the confusion guys. I was referring to the first paragraph about the “-“ sign not working and thought it might be a related issue to the other thread. 


I recently did a search for "cow t-shirt", and I thought that we are supposed to use the - sign to remove unwanted search items that pop up with what you want.  Apparently that doesn't work anymore....?  For example, I would use "cow t-shirt -chicken" in my mp search. 

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[JB]

What exactly is tag spamming? I never fully understood what that meant, here

[Windy]

I posted a set of tags to my Twitter. These tags appear on a Zazzle product, or many Zazzle products. I can't remember which. There are well over 1,024 products showing this kind of tagging at Zazzle ....I only tweeted one example of  multitudes. This  is tag spamming. 

https://twitter.com/InBirthdayCards/status/1531260278104629250?s=20&t=sh7Q8xCZpR-Sd_GBzeC4Hg

Multitudes. There are multitudes of these at Zazzle. This extremely horrendous tag spamming hurts Designers, and hurts Zazzle and will hurt Zazzle shareholders when Zazzle becomes a public company. 

[KLS]

So frustrating. It also turns off the customers when they're searching for something in particular and a bunch of irrelevant items pop up.

[FloridaDesigner]

@Windy  "This extremely horrendous tag spamming hurts Designers, and hurts Zazzle and will hurt Zazzle shareholders when Zazzle becomes a public company. "

And perhaps sooner than later with A***** merch upping their game in the POD business.  They seem to be expanding their product line - they're not just t-shirts anymore.

[shellifitz]

And some people get ostracized for making a detailed report here in the forums that could have helped Zazzle take care of the problem...  but instead of suspending the spammers, the legit designer gets punished for taking their own time to do the research and saving Z a bunch of legwork.   

PS, It isn't making much difference that I can tell from the dozen or so that I personally reported.  

[Scott]

They posted a list of usernames and Member IDs in a very public way. We've long requested that people not single out other users in this manner. If you (or anyone else) has a problem with the behavior of other members of the Zazzle platform you should use the Report feature, or contact us privately.

[Windy]

That's good information, @Scott about why the information-packed thread is no longer visible.

Will you also update the Zazzle Community as to whether, when, and how,  and if, Zazzle plans to take action on the thousands of spam tag products? I am now seeing these spam tag products offered to me by Zazzle when I search for a product. I find these prohibited-by-Zazzle tag spammed products featured in the set of products you show me under the Other designs you might like stream.

[Scott]

If you find a product that you feel violates our rules then please use the Report feature to let us know about it.

[Westerngirl2]

Scott, can you give us an estimate as to how long after a product is reported, action to either amend the misused tags or removal of the product can be expected? If it has been weeks, or even months, should we file a duplicate report? Thanks.

[Scott]

Unfortunately, I'm not able to provide an ETA on when reported content will be reviewed. If you've reported them then they'll be seen. No need to re-report.

[shellifitz]

@Scott  I personally reported at least a dozen of these spam accounts and products and never got a response from content control and most of them are still in the MP.  I don't have time to track them all down and file and individual report on each and every one of them.  If you add my 12 or so to Windy's 44 and all the ones that were shown in the hidden thread, there must be close to 100 of them.  Probably just the tip of the iceberg. 

ETA:  it wasn't just " a product " either, it was the entire store full of products on all of the ones I reported. 

[PAZP]

Scott, I have reported products using the report feature but do we have a specific Zazzle email  to report accounts/stores that are full of products with complete spam? If not, what is the appropriate way to report those. Thanks. 

[Westerngirl2]

The spammers are now working on Christmas. I'm reporting them; will be interested in seeing if this is corrected. Times are tough right now for all of us, for various reasons; this is one thing that could be and should be stopped. I'm hoping it is.

[LauraLee]

If anyone is interested, I was deleting some really old emails... I noticed one email that I had reported in 2017 for tag spamming.  It was never taken down.  
So just to be clear, the product design was of one specific animal.  Not a dog, cat, bear or the like to which was and still is being used as tags as of this date.  If the use of "any" type of animal is not considered tag spam, what is Zazzle's definition of tag spam? 

[Windy]

I am keeping track of 59 reports of tag spam. These were officially reported to Zazzle about six months ago. I now find that only 57 items remain to be handled by Zazzle Tag Spam Staff.  Action has been taken on two.