Backend keywords (BackendSearchTerm) are prepared to improve the “searchability” of products as much as possible. Because backend keywords will not be displayed on the front page of Amazon, consumers cannot see them, so their significance is to enable consumers to search for products on the front page of Amazon. In other words, backend keywords only need to be searchable and do not need to care about readability.
The writing rules and optimization tips for backend keywords are as follows. First, Amazon requires the length of search terms to be less than 250 bytes, and the excess will be automatically blocked by the system. Compared with the past, Amazon has reduced the number of bytes for backend keywords. Currently, the new search term limit applies to newly registered ASINs and existing ASINs. Amazon officials have given some optimization tips for backend keyword writing.
①Keep within the length limit.
②Include synonyms.
③Include spelling variants, but do not need to include spelling errors.
④Include abbreviations and aliases.
⑤You can use all lowercase.
⑥No punctuation is required, for example, “,” “:” “_”.
⑦ Use spaces to separate each word.
⑧ Do not repeat words in the “Search term” field.
⑨ Do not include the name of your brand or other brands in the search term.
⑩ Do not include ASIN in the search term.
? Various conjunctions are not required, such as “one”, “one”, “and”, “by”, “for”, “of”, “the”, “with”, etc.
? You can use singular or plural, but not both.
? Do not use temporary statements, such as “new” or “promotion”.
? Do not use subjective expressions, such as “best”, “lowest price”, “incredible”, etc.
? Do not add insulting or offensive words.
In order to help sellers better understand the background keywords, some common questions related to the background keywords have been specially sorted out.
1. What is the difference between bytes and characters?
In the “Backend Keywords” field in Seller Central, there is a built-in byte counter that stops accepting input that exceeds the byte (not character) length limit. Some backend keywords contain multi-byte characters.
The ratio of the number of characters and the number of bytes for letters or numbers (for example, az, A-Z, 0-9) is 1:1. When dealing with more complex characters, such as umlauts in German (for example, a), each character has 2 bytes, the length changes. Other complex characters (for example, Japanese and Chinese characters) may have 3 or 4 bytes. In some cases, search keywords may contain both single-byte characters and multi-byte characters, which complicates the prediction of character counts.
2. Do you count spaces and punctuation?
When calculating the length of backend keywords, Amazon does not count spaces or punctuation. For ease of reading, the backend should use spaces to separate different keywords. Punctuation can be used, but it is not required.
3. Why is there only one field for backend keywords?
The reduction of the backend keyword field from 5 to 1 is to improve the quality of Amazon search results. Previously, sellers could add up to 5,000 bytes of backend keywords, resulting in a lot of spam (irrelevant backend keywords). Reducing the number of backend keywords helps sellers focus on using only relevant words to describe specific products.
4. After reducing the backend keyword field to one, how are the backend keywords in the removed fields handled?
Amazon merges the contents of all backend keyword fields into the first field, and sellers need to click “Save and Finish” to overwrite the original content and keep it within the length limit. Sellers can edit the content first and then click “Save”. After saving, any extra content will disappear.
5. What happens if the backend keyword exceeds the limit?
If the backend keyword exceeds the length limit, Amazon will not index any search keywords for that ASIN. If the seller’s ASIN is indexed, then it means that it is eligible (but not guaranteed) to be displayed in search results matching the backend keywords.
6. How do I update the backend keywords for my ASIN in batches?
If the “Category Item Report” option under the “Inventory” tab in the seller’s platform account is enabled, the seller can download a spreadsheet of existing product information. If this option is not enabled, the seller can request that Amazon’s Seller Support team enable this option for their account. After downloading the current product information, the seller can use the “Inventory File” template to bulk upload changes through the “Partial Update” function.
7. Why are some of my search terms not searchable?
Amazon uses machine learning models to determine the relevance of search terms. Amazon believes that relevant terms may change over time, so Amazon’s machine learning models are constantly collecting data to update optimizations. This is an automatic process, and Amazon reserves the right not to use all the keywords provided by the seller when retrieving products.