I am about to celebrate our 50th anniversary and thought I should buy a gift for my long suffering wife. Fairly standard search. So logged on to web and searched for ‘golden wedding gifts’ lots of hits from companies as expected and Etsie but nothing from Folksy? Went down the search pages and our site did not come up at all, disappointed to say the least especially after my monthly fee went up 50%. May account for the lack of sales?
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Disappointed to say that I have never come across Folksy, even with a very specific search as a result of a search, and I do search a lot! I would expect to at least see folksy coming up when I type the exact title of the item, but nope…
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You best way to search might be via Google using a folksy tag as well as your search term. Try ‘folksy golden wedding’.
Found this via Google:
This finds what you want far better than the folksy search bar. The folksy search bar results are pretty useless.
Ps I agree with you. My views, sales have really dropped possibly since the new search was introduced.
PPS I misread your post as not finding via the Folksy search. I see what you mean about Google. Golden wedding gifts gave me zilch Folksy mention.
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I’m a member of Folksy Scotland. When I put Folksy into Google I see Folksy Scotland at the top : I then asked (magnifying glass) Golden Wedding and lots of items came up from across the Folksy Platform.
Shops local to Scotland on Folksy
https://folksy.com › local-shops › region › scotland
](https://folksy.com/local-shops/region/scotland)
Buy beautiful handmade gifts and craft supplies from Britain’s best designers and makers.
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Made in Scotland on Folksy
https://folksy.com › themes › made-in-scotland
](https://folksy.com/themes/made-in-scotland)
The home of Tunnocks teacakes, bagpipes and the Loch Ness Monster has inspired creativity for centuries. Here are some of our favourite things being created …
- [
Tagged items: scotland on Folksy
https://folksy.com › tags › scotland
](https://folksy.com/tags/scotland)
Buy beautiful handmade gifts and craft supplies from Britain’s best designers and makers.
[
Folksy Local Scotland - Facebook
https://www.facebook.com › … › Folksy Local Scotland
](Folksy Local Scotland)
Folksy Local Scotland. 123 likes · 4 were here. Welcome to Folksy Local Scotland
I tend to search under my own page. However, Google should have Folksy on their site, but I have a feeling that so many other businesses and companies pay big bucks to knock the smaller groups way down the list. Not sure if this helps you though. Take care, Katie
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It’s correct if I search under ‘folksy’ then shop comes up but the general public may never have heard of Folksy and just enter their search points which do not direct newcomers to folksy and hence our shops have little chance of competing against Etsi or other craft markets- I would hope that the significant increase in subscription will be spent on improving market penetration?. My products are fairly low cost and hence to cover the subs I need to sell one item a month to break even, not two a year!. Do enjoy making though so will persevere
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I was puzzled as to why a Google search for Golden Wedding with or without Gift suffix failed 100% to find Folksy… especially as I have several specific Golden wedding hearts on here.
I then search for Stained Glass Suncatcher and if found Folksy very high up the list !
It struck me that that appears to be Folksy category related… though there is no category combination which matches that shown.
But when I clicked it it took me to the Glass Suncatcher category…
So maybe Folksy could have a look at why Google appears to only find things at category level and ignores specific things like golden weddings which is what customers are far more likely to be searching for and also take a look at what they have done most recently which has caused this because I’m pretty sure it didn’t have this time last year.
Ps just looked for mothers day gift, gift for her, valentine gift, heart… Same. Not surprising my sales have dropped except for my lovely repeat customers.
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I’ve done lots of searches just now for all kinds of gifts including, handmade and artisan, no sign of Folksy anywhere. That really does need looking at asap, no wonder hardly anyone has ever heard of Folksy.
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This is so strange… I just typed in Folksy Anniversary gift and it brought up the Theme page but nothing else.
I can imagine lots of people have added Anniversary Gift as a tag, so you’d think something would appear. Or do you think because so many people have used the same tag that it’s become null and void and tags need to be a bit more creative?
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I get 69 listings under the heading… maybe you need to scroll down a few lines. ?
Yes my point is if you do not start with Folksy then no results
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It’s very odd.
I searched for “london bus suncatcher” and mine came up first before even one on Etsy
It finds my "Boxer Dog suncatcher’ easy peasy, same for “entwined heart suncatcher”
But
“anniversary heart” “valentines day” “valentine” “valentine heart” “gift for her” “heart suncatcher”
“gift for mum” “mothers day gift” etc etc the sort of search terms the normal customer might be typing into Google for ideas… well can’t find Folksy anywhere but some pretty small companies do make an appearance…
They may be down there on page 999 but got bored searching fruitlessly as would any customer.
I dont expect I will be selling any of my many 'stained glass heart on Folksy except to repeat customers as new ones won’t find mine via Google…
As far as I can see it finds specific things like my Tractor and finds Folksy category level…eg ‘Glass Art’ but beyond that Folksy appears to have gone Google blind !
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I just added a heart and typed the first four words of its title into google. Note I already have 3 more in different colours which have been listed since Friday so not a new title.
I searched for “heart stained glass suncatcher” and as before I gave up hope of finding my heart (I have 4 !) after scrolling through lots of Google result pages.
I searched again adding the 5th word to give “heart stained glass suncatcher nugget”
Ah now I find it and quickly too.
I’ve concluded that there are lots and lots of hearts across the internet matching the first 4 search words and that Folksy is so far down the feeding chain that it has no chance of being found.
But there will be far less matches when I add the specific ‘Nugget’ so it manages to find it.
I could be being silly here but that’s the way it looks to me,
I am also wondering why we are taking such care with titles and tags when it seems they have little or no effect on Google searches which is how most of our listings can expect to be found.
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I much preferred the old search on folksy and the old stats too!
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Don’t forget when searching for anything that no two people’s results will be the same on their own regular browser windows. Your previous searches and preferences will affect your search results whether you’re searching on Google, Folksy or anywhere else.
To get a truer picture of unbiased results, open a private browser window before you start a search 
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Results are much better if you put ‘Folksy’ first BUT that’s the point most people don’t search/shop/google like that - they tend to put the item first and not mention the company - this really inhibits sales on Folksy and does need sorting. I wish we could do a coordinated campaign to raise our profile and get more people talking about us - celebrate Folksy’s unique crafting community working in Britain ‘FOLKSY - HANDMADE AT IT’S 
!’ … you get the drift.
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That may apply when it shows you lots of things you often look for but in this case it is Not showing me things I don’t usually look for. But just to be sure I checked on my husband’s tablet on which I never google and zilch. So I tried Duckduckgo which I’ve never used before. No Folksy Valentine gifts to be found.
Curiously it did find an almost exact replica of my tractor on Etsy when I searched for that (and did find one of my Folksy sold ones a few pages down).
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The best way for us to be found is for Google to find us. That is what the majority of people use to search for things I’m pretty sure.
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I did a few quick searches in a private browsing window just for interest using the term “handmade valentine gift” (I didn’t put the quote marks in the search) and found:
Under ‘All’ - no Folksy result until page 3, which was for a card.
I amended the search and added “UK” to the end and the first Folksy result moved to page 2. However, I then did the same search under ‘Images’ and after scrolling down a long way, found absolutely nothing. Ditto for under “Shopping”.
It would be interesting to know why images on Folksy pages might not be indexing with Google and it would be generally more interesting to know what Folksy does about their indexing on Google - how often do they update their info on Google Search Console or might there be known issues about how Folksy is built that doesn’t automatically optimise it for Google to effectively crawl it?
I don’t know much about the subject - just enough to be curious about what Folksy does and how it could be better.
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Yes I agree with all that. Google used to find everything Folksy. No idea when it stopped.
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Ive tried searching too. Just Linoprint and then followed one of the google options - gifts
One folksy item on the first page shop name - ‘of books and bees’ sorry dont know how to tag in a shop name
Why has google chosen just this one item ??? Ive altered some of my titles to include the word gift and Ill see if it makes any difference In my Stats
I did another search for linoprint and then chose the option ‘shop’ this did take me to an option of choosing Folksy but was quite disheartened to see that the first 2 pages were all from the same shop and the majority of the next few pages too. Folksy does priorotise new listings over everything else it seems. So unless i can mass produce and fill my shop reguarly, im just a needle in a haystack. Two items i listed this week did show up though.
Does any one use the google analytics option?
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