Why does “SEO” mean something different on Amazon than on Google?
Because Amazon’s search algorithm (A9/A10) is optimised for a fundamentally different goal than Google’s. Google is trying to answer a question well; Amazon is trying to complete a sale efficiently. Its ranking signals reflect that directly: conversion rate, sales velocity, and fulfilment reliability weigh heavily, alongside the keyword relevance factors that carry over from general search. A listing that converts well but has thin, keyword-sparse copy can outrank a beautifully written one that converts poorly, a dynamic that would be unusual on Google, where content quality carries more of the weight.
The practical result is that Amazon SEO is closer to conversion optimisation with a keyword layer on top, while owned-store SEO is closer to content and authority building with a conversion layer on top. Same acronym, close to inverted priority order.
What actually transfers between the two, and what doesn’t?
Keyword research transfers reasonably well. Understanding what buyers actually type to find a product category is useful input to both channels, even though the two engines then weigh that input differently. Understanding buyer intent and the language buyers use is genuinely shared groundwork.
What doesn’t transfer is almost everything about execution. Backlinks, the backbone of owned-store authority, do essentially nothing for Amazon ranking, which has no direct equivalent mechanism. Technical site health, Core Web Vitals, crawlability, all central to Google SEO, are entirely Amazon’s problem to solve, not the seller’s; a seller has no page to make faster. And Amazon’s version of content optimisation (A+ Content, backend search terms, bullet structure) has no real analogue in a general SEO programme, because it’s built around Amazon’s specific listing format rather than a general web page.
Does this mean a brand on Amazon still needs its own store’s SEO?
Usually yes, and for a reason distinct from search volume: Amazon owns the customer relationship on every Amazon sale. No email address, no direct remarketing, no brand relationship the seller controls. An owned store’s SEO programme is partly a search strategy and partly the only lever a brand has to build a customer relationship that survives beyond a single transaction. Our take on marketplace dependence covers that from the commerce side.
The realistic plan for a brand selling both is to treat them as genuinely separate programmes with separate goals: Amazon SEO optimised for on-platform conversion and sales velocity, owned-store SEO optimised for organic discovery and an owned customer relationship, rather than one generic “ecommerce SEO” plan applied to both and serving neither well.
Why do reviews and ratings matter so much more directly on Amazon?
Because Amazon’s ranking algorithm treats review volume, recency and rating as direct, weighted inputs to search visibility, not just a trust signal a shopper reads after finding the listing, the way reviews function on most owned stores. A newer listing with excellent copy and strong keyword targeting can still be outranked by a longer-established competitor with a deeper review history, because the review signal is doing real ranking work Google-side SEO doesn’t have a direct equivalent for.
This changes the practical priority order for a new or growing Amazon listing: generating a genuine review velocity in the early weeks after launch is frequently a higher-leverage lever than further optimising listing copy. Copy optimisation has diminishing returns once the basics are covered, while review count and recency keep compounding against a specific, weighted ranking input for as long as the gap against competitors remains open.
An owned store’s equivalent trust signal (testimonials, case studies, third-party ratings) matters for conversion once a visitor arrives, but doesn’t feed a discovery algorithm the same direct way. That’s a structural reason the two channels’ early-stage priorities diverge even when the product and the target customer are identical.
Does measuring success actually differ between the two as well?
Meaningfully. Amazon’s own reporting tells a seller most of what they need about on-platform performance: impressions, click-through, conversion, all measured within Amazon’s closed system. An owned store’s SEO programme needs a genuinely different measurement stack: organic session data, keyword ranking tracking, and, critically, a way to connect organic traffic back to an actual customer relationship over time. That matters because the entire argument for investing in the owned channel is the relationship it builds beyond a single transaction.
A brand running both without distinguishing the two measurement systems often ends up comparing numbers that were never meant to be compared directly: Amazon’s tightly-scoped conversion metrics against an owned store’s broader, slower-to-mature organic funnel, and drawing the wrong conclusion about which channel is “working better” as a result.
