Sellers ask what the algorithm rewards. It is worth saying plainly what it is, because a lot of effort gets spent guessing at things that are not there.
There is no paid placement
You cannot buy a position in search or in a category. Featured items are picked by us for the homepage and are marked as featured, so nobody is being shown something dressed up as organic that is not.
What the sort actually uses
Whichever sort the buyer chose. Best selling is sales count. Newest is publish date. Best rated is the rating average. There is no blend of these pretending to be relevance, because a blend is exactly where a hidden score creeps in.
For a search query
Matching is against your title, tagline and tags. Not your description body, which is why stuffing keywords down there does nothing. Your title is doing most of this work.
The two things you control
- Your title. The words a buyer would actually type, in it, naturally. "Salon booking system" beats "BookPro" for everyone who has not heard of BookPro.
- Your category and tags. Correct rather than broad. Being in three categories you half fit means being outranked in all three.
What you do not control, and should not chase
Sales and ratings move you up, and both come from selling well rather than from optimising. There is no shortcut there, and every hour spent looking for one is an hour not spent on the preview, which is what actually converts the visit.
