Amazon wants you to tweak its search engine

Here’s a new feature from Amazon that lets any registered user instantly add human intelligence to its search results.

On each book product page, there’s a new section with the heading “Help others find this item.” You can click the link to make a “search suggestion.”

Since I’m a book author, I immediately thought of a suggestion I could make for my title, “The Home-Based Bookstore.” My suggestion was for Amazon to show my book when shoppers searched for “bookselling.” Since that keyword isn’t in my title, the book was buried in search results, even though it’s the bestselling book on Amazon about bookselling.

When this feature debuted two days ago, I clicked the link, and it brought me to this screen:

Surprisingly, my suggestion was adopted within 48 hours, and “Home-Based Bookstore” began appearing near the top for searches using the keyword “bookselling.” In the search results, you can even see the reason I gave for my suggestion: “This title is about bookselling but the word isn’t in the title or subtitle. Could be useful for searchers.”

It will be interesting to see how this feature works out for Amazon. Human intelligence could be a terrific help for its search engine, which can be wacky at times. But it seems a feature like this could be misused by spammers and practical jokers, and I don’t see any mechanism for policing it.

However, Amazon’s guidelines for prohibited content do seem to cover all the bases:
* Profanity, obscenities, or spiteful remarks
* Commenting on other search suggestions. Other suggestions and their position in search results are subject to change without notice
* Phone numbers, mail addresses, URLs
* Availability, price, or alternative ordering/shipping information
* Time-sensitive material (i.e. concerts, interviews etc)
* Suggestions which may be controversial, politically or otherwise