3.3 A9 and PPC Impressions

Resources:
A9 Pandora Document

Transcription:

Welcome to another video of the Zon Tools Tips and Tricks Series. In this video I’ll share insight of what I know about the Amazon A9 Algorithm. I’ll try to describe in details based on the documents my nephew shared regarding how A9 decides how and what to rank. I’ll explain why I think this may also affect the number of impressions you’re receiving.

First of all, you can get the document on a new page of our website, https://www.zon.tools/resources/a9-amazon-keyword-rankings-factors. This document will also be linked from within the video as well as on our tutorial page for easier access.

Please note that this is not my content. Rather, it’s from a person within my network. 100% credit goes to Mr. John Z., from Clockwork Teams. DeepBrief.net is the website to find the master resource.

In synthesis, this person John had a look at A9 and based on machine learning, he figured out that the A9 Algorithm is not artificial intelligence but simply a line of rules, checks, and filters that are run on your lists both from the back end and the front end. He summarized the majority of his findings in this document that I shared with you guys.

Basically, there are rules you should stay within when writing  content on your listing. There are several different points, highlighted below.

Your numbers have to be written in English. You shouldn’t use digits, but words.

You shouldn’t use special or forbidden characters, and they are all listed here in blue.

You shouldn’t use abusive words. This makes for a very fun reading. If you have time, go ahead and read it.

You shouldn’t use sexual words as long as you don’t sell within the adult category. If you sell within the adult category, a majority of these words could be allowed. But if you don’t sell in the adult category, they are definitely not allowed.

Abusive words are definitely not allowed.

For units, here is only what’s allowed. For centimeter, you shouldn’t write centimeter as cm., but the word centimeter. For cubic meter, you shouldn’t write cu. For ft., you should write foot. Abbreviations are not allowed.

Promotional words such as: save money, save cash, great for, great as, bestselling, special offer, special promo, discounted promo,  save a dollar, percentage, best price, buy now, money-back guarantee, and middle-priced warranty money-back are all not allowed. They shouldn’t be present in your listing.

As a unit list, the units that you can actually use are listed here. Everything else should be written in full.

What happens if you do put some of these forbidden stuff on your listing? The listing wouldn’t be blocked, but the algorithm A9 will negatively weight your listing. Hence, it will make it harder for you to rank in a higher position especially compared to other listings which are top-notch and don’t have these wordings.

I advise you to read this. It makes for a little bit of a heavy reading. I did edit it a lot in order to make it easier for you guys to read but the core concept is to first of all have a top-notch listing. Check your listing.

Cross-check between what is written here and in your listing, and remove anything you think Amazon wouldn’t like because it will affect your ranking negatively.

Secondly, for about two weeks or so, not only from within some of our users but also outside, in the PPC groups I participate, I’ve seen that a lot of people, without changing anything within the PPC strategy start receiving less impressions. My theory is that the Amazon PPC algorithm started to implement the same kind of logic that A9 has been implementing for long, which is the logic on this page.

So basically, not only has A9 been penalizing you for using ‘null’ words, the PPC algorithms also started to penalize listings that have forbidden wordings in them, in order to give impressions only to listings that are top-notch.

My advice for you is to go through all your listings, check for these red alerts, and fix up your listings not only for easier organic ranking, but also to receive more impressions, higher grading and less penalization from the PPC algorithm.

I hope you enjoyed this. Do read this document and drop a line or ask me anything either on our Facebook group, Facebook page, in my e-mail, or just comment down below the video.

Thanks for watching and take care.