In order to improve the overall shopping experience of customers and enable them to quickly find the products they want through keyword searches, AliExpress recommends sellers with excellent products and excellent service capabilities to customers first. The sellers who can provide customers with a high-quality purchasing experience will have their products ranked higher. The higher the ranking, the higher the exposure rate and the higher the product conversion rate. Therefore, some sellers will cheat to improve the ranking of their products, which is not conducive to creating a fair and competitive business environment. Therefore, AliExpress classifies some behaviors that undermine the fairness of search rankings as search cheating and summarizes them into the following categories.
(1) Product title and keyword abuse
In the title, keywords, brief description, detailed description, etc. of the product, brand names and descriptive terms that are not related to the product itself are set to attract more customers’ attention or mislead customers to browse their products. This kind of behavior is considered as product title and keyword abuse. For example, “mp3, mp3 player, music mp3 player” such a title keyword stacking not only cannot help improve the ranking, but will be punished by the search ranking system.
When the product search ranking system determines whether a product is relevant to a customer’s search term, it mainly refers to the title, category, attributes, etc. At the same time, the common keywords set when the product is released are also one of the reference indicators for search ranking relevance. Stacking and filling in irrelevant content will weaken the influence of relevant core content and affect product ranking. Therefore, sellers are expected to carefully set categories, fill in key product attributes and product words in the title.
(2) Repeated posting to deceive exposure
Duplicate posting refers to sellers maliciously posting the same product as multiple products for sale. At present, the platform mainly judges duplicate posting from three perspectives: the main picture, title, and attributes of the product. If the main pictures of the products are exactly the same, and the titles and attributes are the same, or the main pictures of the products are different (for example, the main pictures are pictures of the same product taken from different angles), but the titles, attributes, and prices are highly similar, they are considered duplicate information.
(3) Opening multiple small accounts to grab exposure
Sellers maliciously register multiple accounts to post the same product for sale.
(4) Random placement of “black five categories” of goods
Order links, freight difference compensation links, gifts, deposits, new product previews and other goods are placed on the website as special goods, but they are not placed in the designated special release category as required. The correct release number of these five categories of goods on AliExpress is “Special category”. When sellers release these five categories of goods, they must place them in the specific category of “Special category”, so that customers can quickly browse and purchase the required goods, successfully complete transactions and ensure a good shopping experience.
(5) Random release of goods
Release of goods in inappropriate categories or setting wrong attributes will affect the accuracy of the website’s product category list and attribute screening, and further affect the customer’s search and purchase experience. When releasing goods, sellers should pay attention to familiarizing themselves with the AliExpress platform’s classification of various industries and categories, and know which major category their goods should be placed in based on physical attributes. Of course, you can also enter the product keyword to view the category to which such goods belong for reference.
(6) Super low price for goods to gain exposure
Sellers publish goods that are far from the normal value of the goods, in the default state and when sorted by price, to attract customers’ attention and gain exposure.
(7) Inverted price of goods and shipping costs
Sellers publish goods at super low prices and raise shipping costs at the same time to attract customers’ attention and gain exposure.
(8) Publishing advertising goods
For the purpose of promoting stores or other goods, sellers publish goods with advertising nature to attract customers to visit, but do not make real sales.
(9) Product sales speculation
For the purpose of increasing the cumulative sales of goods, sellers use the method of selling low-value goods first and high-value goods later and fake transactions to increase the cumulative sales of goods and mislead customers.
(10) Seller credit speculation
Credit evaluation is not based on real transaction experience, but is the act of making or receiving evaluations in order to improve the credibility of members.