Since the recent Google web search change, now being called the MayDay algorithm update, looking for handmade goods online has taken a pretty drastic turn. By all accounts, the new algorithm gives much less weight to pages deep within a site that have few incoming links. Unfortunately, this describes virtually all of the listing pages on handmade sites such as etsy, 1000markets, or craftisart. As a result, finding those “buried” listings (ie: those listings not linked to a site’s front page) has become a lot more difficult.
As discussed in my last column, Google Product Search is a good alternative. The downside is that it is dependent upon feeds from the sites themselves and is restricted by Google by several factors including the number of results returned from any one domain. So for any given search, there will be a lot of goods that are just not included in the results because of this limit.
TheFind is an up and coming product search engine but it is also somewhat dependent on feeds provided by each site. If a particular handmade site is not feeding their product listings to TheFind, chances are good that their listings won’t be included in your search. So if the perfect handmade work that you’re looking for happens to be listed on one of the more obscure venues, you won’t find it if they’re not sending a product feed.
Fortunately, some new options are being created to help shoppers find the handmade goods they’re looking for quickly and easily. Probably the best option right now is the Best of Handmade Search , a new handmade search created by our own Erika Jurney. The Best of Handmade search pool is made up of every possible handmade site plus many independent sites that are not associated with one of the handmade venues.
The Best of Handmade searches a pool of over 70 million pages [as of today, but it grows daily] to give you a very broad range of results for each search. Erika has also provided links to some fun handmade searches in case you just want to browse, and a link for those artists with their own sales sites not associated with a venue to have their work included. In short, The Best of Handmade is currently the most comprehensive handmade search engine available.
So next time you’re looking for something handmade, give The Best of Handmade a try. If you like it, consider adding a Badge or Search Box like the ones below to your site and help get the word out about one of the best ways to search for handmade goods.
From Erika: For the record, I didn’t ask Beverly to say such nice things about Best of Handmade, and if you know her you’ll know it isn’t possible to get her to say something she doesn’t want to say anyway. So thank you, Beverly, for showing such faith in Best of Handmade. It is a labor of love on my part, and I’m so grateful you are helping to spread the word :)
