What is Amazon SEO?

Amazon SEO means optimizing product listings (title, images, bullet points, description and backend search terms) to rank higher in Amazon's search results and recommendation modules. It follows its own logic; it isn't a simple copy of technical SEO built for Google.

The core difference lies in how each search system reaches content. Google crawls the web with a crawler that discovers and indexes pages openly, serving very different intents: informational, navigational or transactional. Amazon searches its catalog, using data supplied by sellers. That's why organic search, as understood on Google, doesn't map cleanly onto Amazon's internal search.

Selling on marketplaces counts as a branch of e-commerce with its own visibility rules, distinct from an independent online store. A brand can rank well on Google and still be invisible on Amazon if it ignores the factors specific to that search engine.

The table sums up what each company says about itself: Amazon searches its catalog, and Google evaluates pages on the open web. Google uses links as a relevance signal. Amazon doesn't publish whether an outside link moves a listing.

In the industry, Amazon's search is known as A9, a name inherited from A9.com, Amazon's search-technology subsidiary. According to Wikipedia, Amazon took the A9.com site down in 2019 after inquiries from The Wall Street Journal for a report on its search algorithm. Amazon doesn't use that name in its SEO guide and doesn't document its current system. It does explain that it matches what customers search for against listing data such as the title, description and backend keywords. In 2024, Amazon researchers published COSMO, a system that infers shopping intent from searches and purchases. According to that paper, it's deployed in search applications such as navigation. For that feature, which the paper calls relatively minor on the search page, A/B tests on about 10% of US traffic showed a 0.7% relative increase in product sales within that segment. The paper doesn't say how much weight it carries in the order of results.

The term "A10" circulates in forums and industry blogs. In Amazon's seller forums, for example, one seller describes it as weighing seller authority, product relevance and external traffic more heavily, and asks for reliable documentation. We didn't find that name on the Amazon pages we reviewed, apart from a seller's question in its forums. There, an Amazon community manager wrote that the company doesn't publish official documentation about its search algorithms. This glossary treats "A10" as a label used outside Amazon's documentation, not as something Amazon states.

What Amazon's guide does say is that listing quality and account health can contribute to rankings, that adjusting price can improve ranking and that keyword stuffing can hurt it. Best Sellers Rank indicates how well a product sells within its category. Amazon doesn't publish how signals are weighted. The idea that CTR, conversion rate or reviews outweigh keywords is an observation by third parties, not something Amazon states.

For any brand selling on Amazon, understanding this discipline is the difference between a visible listing and one buried on page twenty. Unlike SEO for an owned website, here you work on a listing inside someone else's catalog, and domain authority doesn't appear on the Amazon pages we reviewed. Without a buyable offer the product isn't searchable, and out of stock it can't be the Featured Offer. It's also worth watching conversion rate, though Amazon doesn't publish how it affects ranking or how quickly.

This also shifts daily priorities. An e-commerce team selling across several channels needs to separate its own website's SEO from marketplace SEO, with different metrics and levers for each. Mixing the two leads to familiar mistakes, like assuming a backlink moves Amazon rankings, or neglecting stock because a listing is "already ranking well." Many of these habits come from classic SEO, and Amazon doesn't document that they work in its search.

This article covers the definition and core concepts of Amazon SEO as a discipline. For the step-by-step guide, see how to do Amazon SEO.

• Research the actual search terms buyers use inside Amazon, not just Google keywords, and place them in the title, bullet points and backend search terms.
• Keep stock available: out of stock, an offer can't be featured.
• Track price against comparable listings: Amazon's guide says adjusting it can improve ranking.
• Build reviews actively through the channels Amazon allows, without prohibited incentives.
• Monitor Best Sellers Rank and conversion rate as tracking metrics, not just traffic volume.
• Use images that meet Amazon's technical requirements, and watch CTR and conversion.

• Applying Google SEO tactics, like link building, on the assumption that they move Amazon rankings, which Amazon doesn't document.
• Stuffing the title with repeated keywords instead of writing one buyers can actually read.
• Letting a product run out of stock without measuring the later impact on ranking.
• Presenting "A10" as an official algorithm documented by Amazon rather than an informal industry term.
• Ignoring the link between price and ranking, setting prices without comparing them to similar listings.