I was trying very hard to set my keywords on some of my suncatchers so I could select them, all (but only them) with a search (which I could then add to a slideshow of a particular design on Facebook - as I’ve done several times before)
.
It appears to be impossible.
Take the search in the picture for example. I would be astonished if any of the listings which are not mine have ‘Joysofglass’ anywhere within the listing so Why is the search including them ?
Only 2 of those suncatchers are mine.
It’s just picking up glass isn’t it?
Even switching your words around with joysofglass at the front the first 2 that appear are not you! How odd!
Seems pretty useless. It used to work ok. I quite often set up a search and put the search url against my facebook post but impossible. I tried tagging my 11 “big” flowers with “16petal” or “16 petal” or “16-petal” but useless.
Never mind - just sold another 2 of them so only got 9 again now 
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Tee hee! It’s an ill wind and all that! Well done on your sales
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OOh and another - canal boat this time
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Long winded but I’ve got a solution to my problem. Added a long complicated tag to the 9 flowers I wanted to select. Search totally useless …but by clicking the tag on one of them I got all 9 to come up via the tag url
https://folksy.com/tags/joysofglass_stained_glass_16_petal_flower_suncatcher
Question is what use is the Search… ?? if I can’t find any way to find my own things even with very careful and unique tags.
I was trying to find a specific shop yesterday on Folksy who’s name I couldn’t rember how to spell. I knew the first three letters but the search couldn’t find it. Even if I put in just the first letter I got search results of shops not starting with that letter. In face it didn’t come up until I’d gone onto FB and spelled the whole shop name correctly! Not very inspiring really.
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Unusually for me…words fail me.
Oh dear, my customer forgot the name of my shop but she knew my name, Joy.
Type “Joy” as a search in shop … I’m Not there, not as Joys either.
I do appear as Joysofglass - but if I know my shop name I don’t need to search for it . Joysglass finds me to0
but it is completely beyond my computerlike brain to work out the criteria of the shop search.
Perhaps @folksycontent / Folksy someone can explain why JOYSOFGLASS is not found with either JOY or JOYS search term ?
OH and if you search for GLASS I eventually appear on the 11th out of 13 pages - After interesting but totally non glass related pages such as "Squash Bespoke Cushions"
Think I’ll go to bed - my brain can’t take it
I rather wish you hadn’t pointed that out !!!
Ah I see that if I type
joysofgla joysofglas or joysofglass
it finds me. Well that’s useful
Thank goodness I promote myself on Social media / my own website so people can get to me direclty via my links cos they won’t find me very easily via the Search.
PS : @folksycontent Can someone please check if there is a case sensitive element to this as my shop name is all caps except the of.
(and though it finds me as
joysofgla or joysofglas it doesn’t as JOYSofGLA or JOYSofGLAS
And if there is will you please remove it !
- I would be most grateful if I could be reintroduced to the Search index as I’ve obviously gone awol
Pps:
I note that all the shops which come up with a JOY search which are totally unrelated to Joy appear to have the word JOY in the Buying from me section.
What sort of logic is that ???
I’ve added a Joy to mine. Maybe I’ll appear tomorrow !
Scratches head, tears hair out, goes to sleep. Zzzzzz
Ppps: tries again before going to sleep.
Well glory be, there I am in the JOY Shop search.
NOT because my shop name is JOYSofGLASS but because I added the word JOY to my Buying from me section.
Crazy and totally illogical !!!
PPPPs I’ve removec the JOY from my buying from me section so you can see that, ridiculously, I’m almost invisible in the Shop search without it,
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The search works by returning what it believes to be the most relevant results for a particular search. It starts by trying to match all the words typed into the search bar - in the case of your first search these were: “stained glass suncatcher joysofglass”. So it will return items that match those words. But because your search included the words “stained glass suncatcher” other results may show that aren’t just from your shop, depending on how many “points” they have. A search for “joysofglass” returns only your items as far as I can see?
To answer your other questions, the search is not case sensitive. But you’re right, the Shop search is/was set up to look for words in the ‘Buying from Me’ section and we agree that it isn’t returning the most relevant results. So I’ve asked Doug to look at this and he’s currently implementing some changes that should improve the Shop Search. This should go live tomorrow.
After these changes, the shop search will be check your Shop Title, Your (designer) Name, your shop URL (so your user name) and your About Me section for words that match the search. So it’s important that all those areas are filled in.
The search ‘stems’ words, which means if a user types in ‘paintings’ in the Shop search, for example, it will also look for words like ‘paint’, ‘paints’ etc in the sections mentioned above. I’ve looked at the test pages to see how this will work for your shop and (once the changes are live) if someone types in ‘Joy’ your shop will come up in the results because your designer name is given as ‘Joy Salt’. BUT it won’t show up if someone types in ‘Joys’ because the system doesn’t recognise ‘JoysofGlass’ as a word and therefore won’t stem it.
What you could do though is change your shop name to Joys of Glass (with the spaces between) and then you will show up in Shop searches for ‘Joy’ ‘Joys’ ‘Glass’ ‘Joy Glass’ ‘Joys Glass’ and ‘Glass’.
Hopefully that helps, and thanks for flagging up the issues with the way Shop search worked.
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Thanks Camilla @folksycontent. Glad I wasn’t going mad.
I’ve added the words Joy and Joys to my Buying from me section so hepefully that will suffice
Will not be changing my shop name because that is what it is, what I’m known as everywhere including my own website And on the 500 business cards I reordered only last night ! (With Folksy plastered all over them).
I’ll get round my need for more selective searches by using a single complex tag as I’ve done with the flowers.
It is a shame there is no way to search our own shop listings and only our own listings. Took me ages to find all 11 flowers !
Thanks very much for listening and being so responsive
#ilovefolky
Joy xx
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@angelafotoartpapercraft bet this current rather odd search affects you too.
Can’t believe I’ve not noticed it before.
xx
I’ve just noticed something rather strange too. I’ve just done a search for “tote bags”. I began to get concerned when I’d gone through 5 pages and not spotted any of my own.
My first one turned up on page 9, two more on page 12 and two more on page 13. I know recent listings used to come higher and had just relisted my tote bags moments before the search. I’ve done all the recommended things - the phrase “tote bag” appears in my title, the first line of my description and in my tags.
However, a bag titled “Green buds day bag” appeared on page 5 - well above me in the search. This bag does not have the phrase “tote bag” anywhere at all - not in the title, tags or description. Why then would this item with no mention of the phrase come way higher in the search than my bags with the phrase packed in numerous times? Camilla, @folksycontent, any idea why this would be happening? I know I’m not great at getting my listings right but this doesn’t seem logical.
It’s been a while since I carried out such a search but I know I used to be quite high up in the searches - now I seem to have plummeted - and coincidentally (??) so have my sales! Obviously I’m quite concerned as I’ve followed the advice but it doesn’t seem to be working in the way I’d expect.
I don’t think it makes any difference in a word search when an item has been listed. I think it’s only relevant if someone searches by category.
I noticed that, if I made a simple search, say Brooch, the most simple title will come on the first page, especially if it has the word “brooch” as much as possible in the tags and descriptions. So, in order for at least one of my brooches to appear near the front of a search, I have to leave out descriptions that I think people are less likely to look for…
We seem to be encouraged to put as many descriptive words as possible in the title. This may be better for a Google search, but not for a Folksy one.
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I might have to have a tinker around then, although there were some very long descriptive titles appearing quite high up in the search I did, so it’s hard to know what to do for the best.
I got a couple of pairs of cufflinks onto the first page of the search using this method. There is a particular shop that has hundreds of pairs that I would be behind if I hadn’t tried this. I just looked at one of her listings and she had the word cufflinks 10 times!
There is also someone who has cufflinks as the title and as the only general tag, as if it is the proportion of the word cufflinks to the other words, if you see what I mean…
I always do my tags in that way Christine, something I learned from another site.
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I find it totally puzzling and largely illogical which is even more perplexing as computers are pretty logical things. I decided to play with my Giraffe,
The question is : Is my productt Glass; Stained Glass; Suncatcher or the specific item eg Giraffe.
What is someone likely to be searching for ? What would they type if they wanted a stained glass giraffe suncatcher ?
Why, when I search just for giraffe , would “SALE 8 bronze giraffe connectors” appear before my “Giraffe Suncatcher Handmade Stained Glass”
(think that “handmade” is going right now).
(I note the single word “giraffe” titles appear to come first but not all those with giraffe as first word of the title come next which I would have expected,
Took out ‘Handmade’ and Phoebe leapt 6 places up the page
PS She’s 9th now I’ve renamed her “Giraffe - Suncatcher Stained Glass giraffe”
PPS Oddly Sophie comes up 10th in a search for “Horse Suncatcher stained glass” but at least my two horses are at the top
