In my last article, I wrote about Etsy’s new default relevancy search and discussed how it affects your shop, and specifically your titles. This follow-up post should clarify a few things and help you better understand Etsy’s policy change on tagging (since there still seems to be a lot of confusion on the subject).

To recap: Etsy changed its default search to “relevancy.” Essentially, titles carry more weight in searches than tags, with the beginning of the titles carrying the most weight. This means that your titles need to contain accurate descriptive words, with the most important words—which tell us what your item is—at the beginning of the title (using the first two to three words).

Etsy also now gives more weight in searches for exact two- and three-word combos. In order to stand out in relevancy searches, it is critical to use these two- and three-word combos in your titles describe your items. Equally important to relevancy, however, is to also use those same keyword combos in tags.

Unfortunately, this presents a problem, commonly known as Etsy’s tag “stuffing” rule. If you’ve been around Etsy for any length of time, you know it’s not OK to tag “stuff.” What is tag stuffing? It is using multiple unrelated words like “beach ocean turquoise” in a single tag. Tags were originally intended to be a single word, except for specific two-word phrases like “sterling silver.”

After some thought, however, Etsy decided to alter its tagging policies to now allow for “relevant 2 or 3 word phrases” in tags, which is necessary for better relevancy. This new policy allows you to use the same two- or three-word keyword combos that you’ve used in your titles, in your tags. You can read more about Etsy’s policy change here.

Be warned: Etsy is still against tag “stuffing.” While it is still not OK to use “beach ocean turquoise” or “red blue green” as a tag, you can use some two- and three-word phrases that would have previously not been acceptable under the old rules. Just be sure that your word combos makes sense in relation to the item you are tagging, and that the keywords comprise a phrase (not unrelated words).

As an example, if you are selling a painting of a sunset on the ocean, and you have the words “Ocean Sunset” in the title, you can also have the words “Ocean Sunset” as a single tag in your tags. Previously, “Ocean Sunset” would have not been allowed in a single tag.

Hopefully this helps to clarify some of the new changes, and you’ll all be titling and tagging your way to the top of the relevancy searches.

PHOTO CREDITS: Image {Tags} courtesy of Creative Commons License via MrWoodnz photostream – flickr.com.

About the author: Sandie Russo is a 3+ year Etsy veteran with 2 shops, KnitzyBlonde.etsy.com and ZaftigDelights.etsy.com, and is the Captain of the Sellers Assisting Sellers Etsy Team and the SASsy Critique Forum.