MoneyWatch Tech

Amazon Search Has a Meltdown [UPDATED]

By Erik Sherman

Updated on: May 19, 2009 / 12:55 PM EDT / MoneyWatch

After weathering a Twitter uproar over some "adult-oriented" books not showing up in searches, Amazon is facing yet another squall, as its search results go haywire in the opposite direction, adding seemingly irrelevant products to customer searches. And Twitter users have resurrected the #amazonfail hash tag to alert people to the problem. [Check the update at the end, as there's a report of GLBT literature again missing from site searches.]

The source of the notification I heard was blogger Ryan Chapman, who noticed that searches for even popular authors and titles seem to be going askew. He has screenshots of some of his searches, including one for "Harry Potter" under all product categories.

I just tried a similar search a couple of times. Looking in "all departments," the following aperated in:

QuickBooks 2009 for Dummies by Stephen L. Nelson (though apparently it mentions Harry Potter on page 2)
a 2003 novel called Last to Die by James Grippando, in large print
the 2000 book, The Wealth of Man, by Peter Jay

All these were on the first page of listings. I switched the category to "books" and got the following, among others, on the first page of results:

a Harry Potter wand with lights and sound
the Harry Potter adult robe
a Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix fleece blanket
the ever popular QuickBooks 2009 for Dummies
the apparently also ever popular Last to Die and The Wealth of Man
the game Clue Harry Potter (I'm betting on Snape with a polyjuice potion under the Whomping Willow)

When I switched to the "gourmet food" category, Harry Potter brought up the DVD of one of the movies, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and that wand with light and sound. What, no Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans? This could become a likely-short-lived new game. Alex, I'll take "Jimmy Carter" in All Departments, please. (Among many things supposedly Jimmy Carter was the DVD for the second season of Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles.)

[UPDATE: A little less on the amusing side, a blog called QWEERTY notes that some GLBT literature doesn't appear on Amazon's normal searches and only shows up if a user heads to the Gay & Lesbian section first.]

Maze image via stock.xchng user gerard79, standard site license.