It is very odd! Didn’t think about download speed either. But Av… did nothing, not even customer service so how does the bunting appear? Yet none of my folksy stuff appears? Hope Folksy can come up with some answers so we can put things right but as you say, it will be down to money.
1 Like
I beleive Google in 2022 made some pretty big changes to how it ranks site re searches (eg :his update is meant to help Google to identify high-quality product reviews and reward them with better rankings. !).
I don’t even begin to understand it but the timings of the changes would seem to coincide probably with my own drop in views .
1 Like
So on google my bunting was not displayed. I noticed a section for folksy at the top. So clicked on that and scrolled down and it still is not there. So it looks like I am completely invisible. Hmmm maybe I can also see if I can ask folksy the same question.
If I click on sub category folksy then also sun catcher it then appears but no one will bother to do that if doing a general search.
1 Like
Your buniting appears 10th if I google “glass bunting folksy” so you are not invisible.
2 Likes
Looked on google( which I dislike) and tried to understand why folksy was so low, looked under their comments and found-
Best Etsy Alternatives of 2023
- Shopify: Best for Established Businesses.
- Amazon Handmade: Best for Those Already Selling on Amazon.
- Wix: Best for DIY-Minded Users.
- Weebly: Best for Users on a Budget.
- Squarespace: Best for Large Volume
Not very helpful!
2 Likes
I can better that. I asked it for Best UK Etsy alternatives of 2023 and don’t recognize most of the companies… Maybe the Google AI chatbot is playing up again 
9 best Etsy alternatives for craft sellers
- Big Cartel.
- Squarespace.
- Wix.
- Ecwid.
- IndieMade.
- Bonanza.
- Amazon Handmade.
- Goimagine.
2 Likes
I just asked my husband who builds and manages web sites what the issues might be and the short answer is that he can’t really tell because there are lots of ways to do things and only Folksy know what they’ve done. However, he did think it was odd that the meta data file for one of my items showed that the part that Google would usually look at was pulling from my item description before its title.
He says that the key for Google (and I guess any other search engine) is the site map, which is essentially a huge bank of data that is constantly changing as we change things on our pages. As long as that exists, is built so that it shows the right things, is up to date and findable by Google, search should work fine…
We really can’t work it all out without some explanations from Folksy. I do wonder also if the recent site design update could have changed some things around as some people in this thread are saying that it used to be fine?
4 Likes
Interesting. One of the key words picked up on one of my items was ‘cat’. This is way down at the bottom of my item description where I refer to some of my recycled packaging (the cat’s food boxes). No wonder we are finding it hard to understand how things have changed.
3 Likes
Tried the suggestion of a private browser window, searched Valentine’s Gift , nothing at all on the first page. Even with handmade added. I have several hearts in my shop all tagged Valentine’s gift.
The worrying thing is that we still haven’t heard anything from any Folksy Staff, even though there were a couple of direct tags… I just did another search, with the theme of the day. No Folksy items… It’s like everything stays completely internal…
3 Likes
If there is a problem (and it’s possible there might be) I’m sure Folksy staff are trying to fix it - they’ve always been pretty good in the past so hopefully we’ll get more info (and a solution) soon. I am still getting the odd sale so somethings are working fine.
1 Like
Folksy is definitely broken for Google. Nearly all of my traffic was driven from Google before the site was “upgraded”. Since the “upgrade”, I’ve not had any traffic from Google at all.
A couple of friends kindly tested searching Google today for different items I have in my shop - nothing came up, and they went through more than 20 pages of results on all the searches they did.
3 Likes
Hey everyone, I know you’re all looking to get a better understanding of what’s going on. I wasn’t able to work much today due to family illness but will spend tomorrow trying to share as much information with you all as possible.
I know it can be very frustrating to wait but I can assure you we’re taking a really close look at this to try and understand if something isn’t working as expected because our overall Google performance is up for the site.
I’ll share more tomorrow but wanted to send a quick message tonight to let you all know that we’ve seen this and we’re looking into it.
13 Likes
Thank you Aaron. Appreciated 
xx
Thank you - looking forward to finding out what’s happening
I’ve only recently come back onto Folksy, I get very little traffic unless I’m joining in thread’s. I thought that as I have an Etsy shop which has steady orders I would be able to write listings that got seen.
I’m interested to see what is said as I would like to try and make this work. At present I’m not a plus member, but was considering changing to it for a few months to see what happens
Thanks Aaron for promising to sort these issues out. I have been a regular seller for years and often hit the top fourty sellers list like others who are discussing this issue,
My sales have dropped considerably since Folksy did an upgrade. I have pointed out previously on the forum that basic search words for product descriptions do not come up with Folksy at all. Some on the forum shot me down in flames at the time. Since Folksy have increased our fees I think it’s only fair Folksy start to improve their visibility on search engine searches. Sellers are certainly doing their bit regarding promoting Folksy on Social media . If basic search terms are not showing Folksy on the first page with Etsy there is something very wrong. Sellers don’t stand a chance! I am fed up with seeing Etsy constantly coming up when the word hand made or simular wording is used when searching for items.
I would hate to have to leave Folksy due to very poor visibility. For the amount of years Folksy have been trading one would expect it to be better known by the general public by now!
The general public don’t know they should put the word ’ Folksy’ first in their search descriptions, why should they when Folksy is so little known!
7 Likes
I do agree with most of that but we must remember that Folksy can Never compete with the spending power of Etsy so think we should take comparison with that out of the equation.
2 Likes
Many thanks Aaron - It might not even be something Folksy can do anything about (times are tough at the moment and online sales scarce) but it is interesting that Folksy sellers ‘items’ seem harder to find on Google since the upgrade. Obviously Folksy is smaller and doesn’t have the ‘clout’ or online presence of some of the ‘bigger fish’ but it’s worth checking to see if it’s performing at optimum efficiency. I would alway expect to sell more on Etsy but Folksy is a much nicer place to be and offers other advantages.