I’ve decided to be patient and give the Folksy team a chance to get things on track. I don’t do great here but I believe in the ethos so keep at it - plus I like to have a 2nd basket for my eggs! 
I feel like things have been slowly improving on the platform over the last few years although we’d all like it to go faster and further.
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None of my tote bags show up in the ‘tote bag’ search now even though tote bag are the first 2 words in the title. Previous searches had shown 1 or 2 of my bags but not now. Perhaps I’ve been blacklisted for moaning!
So should we maybe start reporting more of the items we’re seeing that are clearly made using non-original designs? I don’t like reporting people in general, I’ve never done it on here, but if these kinds of items are starting to take over, dominate search results, and put off genuine handmade sellers (not to mention buyers)… Or maybe it’s not our place to police the site. I would just hate to see Folksy resort to AI policing like Etsy has.
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In my view I think we should Carrie otherwise the site will get swamped with items that aren’t original. I’ve reported a couple of shops with clearly ai generated images on cards. They really shouldn’t be on here.
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And I’ve reported where 100 stock quantity as that is Bulk not unique qualityhandmade however you look at it and Not what I thought and Folksy advertise this site as being about
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I report items when I think they are not handmade (or breach another policy area). But I try and check first whether the item may be using the artist/makers original work.
Artists regularly try to get a broader income stream from outsourced copies of their own work - if someone does a drawing or other piece of artwork that takes time and skill, then it’s always been fine here on Folksy for them to have copies printed by another company - either as actual prints or cards. I’ve even had greetings cards printed myself that feature photos of my hand embroidery (I actually did originally have 100 of them done due to print run costs, but I’ve not listed that many 
).
So, I think it’s not so different if someone uses their own design as prints on other pre-made items, like bags or mugs - as long as the original artwork is theirs. And they are explicit in the listing about how they created the design, and what the print process is (in-house our outsourced).
But if someone downloads a graphic or image from an digital site and then gets that printed onto a mug, bag or poster by external company, then that’s not in the hand-made category. Doing minimal changes like resizing the font or changing the colour aren’t enough - it’s not really their work.
An easy way to check is to reverse image search on Google - if the exact same items comes up on other platforms by other sellers, then chances are they are digital products purchased by all the sellers. Especially if they are all using exactly the same AI backgrounds 
. It’s possible an original image has been stolen, but you can easily check by having a look at the shop’s social media sites to get a sense of how they do their craft.
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Oh, I completely understand about people having their own designs or other work printed onto items, that’s totally different! I’ll have to Google to find out how to do a reverse Google search 
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Well, Folksy are doing something, not sure it’s much of an improvement…when I do the ‘tote bag’ search now the 1st 3 rows of bags that were from an empty shop have gone, however, now we just seem to have even more from the other shop selling printed bags, in fact 135 of their bags show up in the search, almost 3 pages, and there is not 1 bag from my shop. I would really like someone from @Folksy @FolksyStaff to tell me why…It’s so unfair, I feel like giving up to be honest. I haven’t had any sales this month which is unusual for me.
Edit…is it based on the number of items you have in your shop that are relevant to the search? That’s how it feels. A shop with hundreds of tote bags, and each one available in large quantities, gets loads coming up in search, but a shop that only has 4 doesn’t appear at all, so favouring the larger shops?
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I wonder if it is to do also with the listing unique number.
This is a new one of mine added last night. I’ve added a space as trying to show its url not my lovely piece of glass 
https ://folksy.com/items/8498437-Pinwheel-Suncatcher-Rainbow-Stained-Glass-Handmade
This is something which i made in the year dot… don’t tell the customers .. and it is still 100% good to go
https ://folksy.com/items/7119826-Dragonfly-Suncatcher-Handmade-Stained-Glass-Small-Red
Ah ha Think i might have cracked it. Once an analyst and all that.
When you create a listing it gets a unique sequence number 7119826 in the case of that old dragonfly and 8498437 for the top of my shop brand new pinwheel i want all my customers to see as it is new.
As I have apologised for when i search Suncatchers. I get mostly mine but the ones i get first are Not the ones i want the customers to be shown first (that’s why i carefully arrange my new things at the top of my shop !!).
Nope. What i get is my Red unloved and unwanted red dragonfly showing 8th, 2nd line down.
So i thought to check the sequence numbers of the 4 suncatchers below.. all mine :rofl and guess what i found… they are displayed in order of their sequence numbers so
Customer gers to see alll our oldest listings first !!
What a fantastic idea if we are all trying to clear out our old stock.
Not so good if we actually want to sell something…
Try it. Chose a page with lots of things from the same seller and they will I am pretty sure be in sequence (meaning date created) order. Now I have been here a long time, since the Dinosaurs as you will know, so some of my things are very old and will undoubtedly mostly, espeicailly if i relist and i do sometimes when i make a replacement, even new things will have lower numbers than listings from new or at least much newer things than mine.
So are my suncatchers coming up before everyone else purely becuase they mainly have lower numbers…
Back later with the answer.
Available as a computer analyst it anyone wants to pay me !
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I am Flabbermygasted.
Just checked more on the page. there are 4 things by other sellers starting on line 3 and would you believe it…
YEP… those numbers are in ascending sequence slotting in with mine.
Whatever you do…if you make a replacement for something…Relist the original one and don’t copy instead or your new one will get a higher number and will vanish into page 9999 of the search and will never appear again. as only 7 pages are allowed !! 
Just to be sure I just relisted my dolphins
https ://folksy.com/items/7324092-Dolphin-Suncatcher-Stained-Glass-Handmade-
And got the same sequence number.
Then i copied them and got
https ://folksy.com/items/8499131-Dolphin-Suncatcher-Stained-Glass-Handmade
And as i have shown above those go right to the very bottom of a very very deep fathomless well never to see the light of the customer;s search.
This is really annoying. I usually copy when I make a replacement as that way I can find my new listing at the end of my shopkeeping and move it quickly to the top, taking a few others along in matching colours to keep a pretty shop front. When relisted it takes minutes to find where I last left it so I can move it to the top !
Only time I relist not copy is if it has a lot of loves.
Hmmmmmm
PS And remember. We used to be able to see the date originally listed which might have assisted in working this out but that was unhelpfully removed a couple of years ago, annoyingly as i used it quite often to find things. So the only way you see that sequence number which is soooo important in this new rubbish search, is by clicking the listing to see the url .
PPS Note the straight sequence will not apply to all the searches in the same way it does to Suncatcher which is a pretty specific search.
. it depends on the search terms and how they are extracted. Some things are obvouolsly extracted by a title word or keyword however they are doiing it, your guess as good as mine on that one.
So you will in some cases get a group of things extracted on one criteria and other groups on other criteria and think the sequencing will refer to all with each group.
PPPS would love to know why on earth it is including in its results listings for shops which are no longer there . I was doing what i thought was a simple CAT search. ha ha nothing simple about it. !
https ://folksy.com/items/8180910-Albert-small-ornamental-cat-with-bird If you click the shop name you are thrown to Folksy front page. Surely those could (sorry Should) be automatcially excluded from any search. Does it mean that when a shop closes all the listings are left on the database taking up costly storage space on the server and slowing down the system responses ?
PPPPS Why is it bringing up listings which are not only out of stock but must be in the archive list in the sellers shop (evidenced by no price shown). eg
https ://folksy.com/items/4023090-Dark-Grey-Pearl-and-Crystal-Drop-Necklace-Charcoal-Grey-Bridesmaids-Pendant and to add insult to injury there are two identical ones next to each other
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Perhaps you should pass all this on to Folksy Joy then they can use it to reverse what they have done making some of us invisible. I am being serious it is definitely worth mentioning it x
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Indeed Debby. 
I have no doubt whatsoever though that Folksy check every post in these forums.
Even if they appear to be keeping well away so they don’t need to explain why nothing has been done to correct this shocking situation.
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Thank you for figuring that out Joy. I’ll hold off making proper new listings until things are sorted. I’ll just amend re-lists.
I did wonder why it was showing my much older items in the search.
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I just copied one of my very old listing and deleted the old as i really do not want it appearing in the first page of any search for stained glass and suncatchers. I have a few things i need to redo photos as they are so old. I did do that one while i was at it but i do prefer my best things to be shown not my oldest. I think i will quickly put any others with non white background photos into draft until this almighty mess is sorted, if it ever is.
20 days now I believe !
Ah that’s easier said than done as would have to search my dashboard to find them. Easier to remove from stock. Doing it now.
HAHA That won’t work will it.
" You have 44 listings out of stock
Out of stock listings have no items available. The expiry date won’t have changed a
> nd the items won’t be shown on the site."
Of course they do !!! 
How do you hide something ???
How very unhelpful .. You can only Hide if it is in stock.
Give up better things to do with my life than mess around trying to keep my shop here looking good
I will return later and find all the things i don’t want appearing at the top of the search. Will edit them to have a qty of 99 which means i can then find them in my in stock dashboard by sorting on quantity. and i will then hide them.
Just in case anyone wants to do the same !!! Hiding actually does seem to hide them.
I just did the Tote Bag search. And was horrified to see pages and pages of bags (no way hand made) with nothing less than obscene printing (presumably done by a printing company). Ok, some people might like something a little rude or risque (personally I dont) but what I was seeing pages of went beyond that.
What a turn off. If I was a new prospective buyer looking for ahand made tote bag I would never ever go near Folksy again.
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I’m not a prude but absolutely agree with you and if it’s the same shop it’s all over t shirts and mugs too.
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Completely agree, its not just Tote bags though, anyone searching for a fathers day, dad gift will be confronted with mugs and tshirts with the same distasteful slogans quantities of 100.
Who on earth would send their Dad a mug or T shirt with DILF printed on the front??
I agree, potential customers are going to look elsewhere, i would.
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I don’t even know what Dilf means…I have led a sheltered life…lol
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“DILF” is a slang term, primarily used online, that refers to an older man, typically a father, who is considered sexually attractive.
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Following on from Joy’s comments about older items (with lower numbers in the URL) appearing at the beginning of each search. I tested it earlier with some patchwork quilts, and I think that edits also affect the position.
I had a quilt on the first page of search “Patchwork quilt” that was one of my older ones, and it seeme to fit with Joy’s observation of sequential numbering with other products - many of which were not even quilts 
I deliberately relisted an (expired) listing with an even older number - but I changed it so it was exactly the same as the one (title, tags, description etc) but different photos - I wanted the test to be as true as possible. It did show but it’s on page 4 - much lower down than items with an earlier number. And worse - the listing that was page 1 is also now on page 4 - right next to thye one I relisted. The only explanation is that I edited it at the same time (updating photos).
If I find another suitable pair of products, I will re-test without editing.
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