Thank God that Etsy decided to switch their search default from most recently listed to relevancy in August, before I started school and before the hordes of holiday shoppers started to descend upon the site.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here are the basics:  the buyers at Etsy, the site that I get most of my traffic through, mostly rely on the site search to find new products.  So, if someone doesn’t know my shop and is at Etsy looking for address labels, she’ll probably take a look at the top of the page, type in “address labels,” and then several pages of results featuring address labels (or not–which is another issue entirely) will pop up.

Since the beginning of time (well, since the beginning of Etsy, I imagine), that search was sorted by the most recent listing.  So, if I had just posted a new label or had relisted after selling something, my new item would be at the top of the first search page.

Now, Etsy is using relevancy for its results.  That means items more related to your search term are placing higher in the results and that the quality of your search results should be better and more topical.  There are fewer unrelated products showing up on the first several result pages, and that’s good for customers and sellers.

Sellers are having to do a lot of work to make sure that their items are showing up at the top, though. And, it’s a bit of an art to get the search listing stars to line up as I’d like them to. Lots of sellers in the forums are, to put it mildly, freaking out.

I’m not saying they shouldn’t be concerned–it is a big deal.  In the end, though, I know we’ll all get the hang of it if we pay attention, and we’ll move on to the next obstacle.

That’s right, I’m taking it in stride.  After a bit of research and work, I think I kind of have things figured out–for now.  In a few days or weeks or months, I’ll have to do this thinking all over again…but that’s life.  Life is change.

The sentiment in the forums right now reminds me of my life right now as a teacher in Wisconsin.  Let me preface this all with the note that I wish things were different, that we hadn’t had our education budget slashed and that kids weren’t going to be coming back to school with bigger class sizes and to teachers who are worried about when the next shoe is going to drop. Despite the fact that I’m not happy about the state of our state or economy right now, I know that dwelling on it hour after hour, day after day and week after week doesn’t make it any better.  Instead, I had to focus on the good, focus on what I could control–myself–and make me the best that I can be. Sure, it’s been a challenge, but I’m working at it and I know that no matter what happens, we’ll all get through this.

I think all of us have to remember that change is inevitable–we can’t get so caught up in the fact that things are changing. Instead, our energies need to be directed at getting through the upheaval and worry, and possibly coming out in better shape on the other side.