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Comment by zackbloom | Hacker News Reader

Has anyone actually tried the experiment posed in the article? If I go to Amazon and search 'spatula', I get pretty reasonable results:

- A Kitchenaid spatula for $7.99

- A similar set of two knockoff brand ones for $13.99

- Some editorial recommendations including one from OXO, a wooden option, a fish spatula, etc.

I wonder what weird state the person writing this has on Amazon.com, or maybe it's all hyperbole?

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I just tried the experiment myself and I get very similar results to what the article describes.

It's mostly sponsored (4 of the top 10 are sponsored). There is only 1 on the entire first page where I recognize the brand. It's the 2nd last on the page (Cuisinart). I see no KitchenAid or OXO.

My experience is more similar to the parent. Granted, the first row seems to be a sponsored spot with 3 listings of spatulas for a brand called "MOACC", but the KitchenAid spatula is the first in second row, which is also prominently labeled "results". A good portion of the search results are also for brands that I don't recognize, but it's not impossible to find name brands. The third row is labeled "AMAZON’S CHOICE", which contains products from KitchenAid, OXO, and Rubbermaid. The fourth row (ie. second row of results), also contains KitchenAid and OXO products.

This is done on amazon.com, from a US VPN ip, using chrome browser on desktop.

Not hyperbole. My search for 'spatula'

In the top row: an amazon store brand + 3 nonsense word SEO barf titles brands.

Second Row: 2 normal brands + 2 nonsense word brand with seo barf titles

3rd row: labeled as 'highly rated items" 4 SEO barf titles. etc.

Tried and my results are all spatulas, most kitchen implements type and a few tool types.

I think these anecdotes need some more data to establish patterns, ie. the region. I've done my search in the Spanish store. My account in this region is fairly recent, less than a year. My spend is quite high, as we rely on home delivery for everything that is not supermarket type goods.

yes, mine were all spatulas too. That's not the issue being talked about.

I have noticed as the economy does worse, the amount of advertising on Google and Amazon search results goes up and up as well as more difficult to distinguish between paid and organic results. They have a lever they can throttle at their will, and when they need more money, they increase the ads. It takes people a while, maybe 6 months+, to realize their go-to search engine or online store has trashed their UX in favor of increasing the price of stonks.

You're probably using an adblocker. For me the kitchen aid spatula is on the 2nd page after all the sponsored results

It looks like the search results got better in the last couple of months. Back in the fall when I was searching for "2TB SSD" the results were completely awful and included things like HDDs (why?!?). Trying the same search today seems to get a lot more relevant results.

Do you use an adblocker? Might explain it.

I think this is the answer, I opened Amazon in Firefox where I have an adblocker and the first result was KitchenAid. In Safari w/ no adblocker the entire first row was ads and there was an extra ad above that for spatulas taking up another row's worth of space for effectively two rows of ads before real results.

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