Amazon Replies To Claims That Its Search Results Are In-House Product Oriented

According to a Wall-Street Journal report, Amazon searches have been generating in-house products in the top results, more than it used to. Now, Amazon responded to the claims.

It’s not a secret that the giant changed its search algorithm last year, in order to generate results that would raise the company’s profits. Keep in mind that Amazon sells more than 10,000 products under its brand.

According to marketing analytics firm Jumpshot, this change of algorithm directly affects other brands too. As we know even from our own experience on shopping online, most purchases are made from users clicking on the products displayed on the first page of results.
Therefore, chances are that users will reach to Amazon’s brands sooner than later.

According to an Amazon statement, emailed to CNET, this is “Not factually accurate. We feature the products customers will want, regardless of whether they are our own brands or products offered by our selling partners. As any store would do, we consider the profitability of the products we list and feature on the site, but it is just one metric and not in any way a key driver of what we show customers.”

Moreover, the company insists that this long-term profitability is nothing new, as it has been a part of its search algorithm for a while.

An Amazon spokesperson told the Journal, “We have not changed the criteria we use to rank search results to include profitability.”