Frequently Asked Questions

MerchantWords is an Amazon keyword tool with the largest and most extensive database of searches from real Amazon shoppers. Since 2012, we've collected close to two billion keywords and helped nearly 100,000 entrepreneurs grow their businesses.

We collect searches from the Amazon search bar so we can study what’s in the minds of shoppers — your customers — and show you how they're searching. With the power of our keyword data, you can discover new product ideas, increase traffic to your product listings, improve PPC campaigns, and ultimately, grow your sales and your business.

You can learn even more about how we do what we do and how we get our data here

In order to accommodate sellers of all experience levels, we offer a variety of plans at different price points to make sure you get exactly what you need, and don’t pay for anything you don’t.

If you’re just getting started on a single Amazon marketplace in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, the United Kingdom, or the United States our SILVER Plan is ideal for you. You can choose either a monthly subscription for $19/month, or an annual subscription for $190/year – and get two months free!

If you’re business generates 25K or more in monthly revenue and extends across Amazon’s regional marketplaces (North America (US, CA, MX); UK/Europe (UK, DE, ES, FR, IT); or Asia/Australia (AU, JP, IN)) our GOLD Plan is ideal for you. You can choose either a monthly subscription for $79/month, or an annual subscription for $790/year – and get two months free!

If you’re a large established brand or agency, our PLATINUM Plan is ideal for you. You can choose either a monthly subscription for $149/month, or an annual subscription for $1,490/year – and get two months free!

And there’s no risk; you can cancel anytime. Sign up for your perfect plan on our Keyword Tools page.

If you’re already part of the MerchantWords family you can choose to keep your existing plan. You will have access to your current features and pay the same monthly fee. You can upgrade your subscription at any time to take advantage of all the amazing new features available.

We are always collecting Amazon keyword and SERP (search engine result page) metrics on a daily basis, and overhaul and update all the data in our database every 3-4 weeks. It has taken us years to understand that this is the right amount of time to take a snapshot of the month-to-month changes in search behavior.

All of the Amazon keyword and SERP data on MerchantWords comes from Amazon’s 11 marketplaces. We visit Amazon the same way that shoppers do, and type in every single combination of keywords available. MerchantWords does not use data from Google, Bing, or any other search engine to calculate our search estimates, just computational math and statistics.

Before we release any data live to our customers, our engineers, data scientists, and product managers review the results. We double, triple, and quadruple check our work before anyone gets to use it for their business.

First, we compare our ranking system to the data we get directly from Amazon. Then we spot check our estimates with PPC advertising data. This is done to ensure we’re not under-representing any searches. Our reviewers and data scientists then further compare the raw output against Amazon's recent and seasonal trends. This allows us to tune and update our algorithms on an ongoing basis to adapt to Amazon's shifting trends and its evolving suggestion engine. Billions of data points are processed and ranked in every cycle to distill the latest and most relevant information possible – including the hidden relationships – to expose what is in demand on each Amazon marketplace.

MerchantWords currently publishes Amazon data from searches within the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Mexico, Italy, Australia, India, and Japan.

If you would like to see other countries as well, please contact us. We'd love to hear your suggestions!

We’ve been doing this since 2012 – longer than anyone else in the industry, and we’ve collected more keywords directly from the Amazon search bar than anyone else. That means we’ve had many years (and hundreds of billions of data points) to perfect our methods. And we continuously refine and improve our processes to produce the most accurate and knowledgeable results possible.

If you spot anything that seems unusual, please contact us and let us know. We'll look into the issue and make any necessary corrections.

Most customers use MerchantWords’ keyword database to improve the profitability of Amazon Sponsored Ads / Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns. You can discover completely new keywords, see what keywords competitors are ranking for, and find trending keywords across countries all around the world.

We wish it were that simple to have highly profitable ads, but Amazon is trickier than that. While Amazon has never released how their PPC algorithm works exactly, it’s safe to assume there are many factors to be considered, such as longevity, inventory, sales velocity, customer reviews, etc. MerchantWords can help give you a boost above the competition for keywords, but it’ll be up to you to handle the rest of the algorithm and budgeting for maximizing your ad effectiveness.

Of course! Keywords bring traffic to listings, regardless of how that item is sold. Naturally, when you are the only seller of an item, improving the visibility of your listing through better keywords is going to bring you more sales directly.

But even in the case where you share the buy box with other sellers, adding better keywords to your listing of the shared item is still beneficial. Because of your improvements, the item will match more search terms, and sales will start to increase. If you don't currently own the buy box, there are no immediate sales for you. However, the increased sales velocity means that the current buy box owner is going to sell out of their inventory all that much faster, and it'll be your turn to own the buy box all that much sooner.

Yes! Today, MerchantWords indexes keywords and SERP metrics for Amazon. Many of our customers also use our shopper search data to optimize their listings on Walmart, eBay, and Etsy, and to enhance the SEO of their blog and website content.

MerchantWords can collect data from almost any other marketplace including Walmart, eBay, Etsy, and more. If you are interested in a custom data report send us an email and we’ll contact you with more information.

While we do not offer a free trial, if you sign up for an account and are not fully satisfied with our service, you can cancel within 14 days of signing up for a full refund of your purchase.

You can pay for your MerchantWords subscription with a credit card or bank-issued debit card. We do not accept PayPal at this time.

Totally. Your information is kept completely secure and is never shared with anyone. You always remain in complete control of your business and your Seller Central account. You can read more legal details in our Privacy Policy / Conditions of Use.

A comma-separated values (CSV) file allows data to be saved in a structured table format. CSV files can be used with any spreadsheet program, such as Microsoft Excel, Open Office Calc, or Google Spreadsheets. On our site, you’ll see "Download CSV," which means you can download or transfer the data/keyword search results that you see on our site to a file you can easily navigate. You can also store keywords in our Keyword Collections.

To perform a search by ASIN in the MerchantWords keyword tool, you must be subscribed to a US PRO, GLOBAL, GOLD, or PLATINUM plan.

Customers subscribed to discounted plans can upgrade their subscription to receive this data.

You can currently search by ASIN for the Amazon US and the UK marketplaces. We plan to roll this feature out to other marketplaces in early 2020.

Keyword Collections are not currently available a la carte but will be available soon.

You can view and download receipts and invoices any time in your MerchantWords’ account. Simply:

1. Log in to www.merchantwords.com.
2. Click on the pink person in the top, right corner and select "My Account" from the drop-down menu.
3. Scroll down to "Billing History.”
4. Under “Actions” on the right side of each transaction, you can download, view, or email an invoice for all charges by clicking on the icons.

Changing your plan is easy and you can do it at any time on our site. To change your plan, simply:

1. Log in to www.merchantwords.com.
2. Click on the pink person in the top, right corner and select "My Account" from the drop-down menu.
3. Scroll down and select “Change Subscription” on the left, gray column. There you can upgrade your subscription to one of the plans currently available on our site. If you have one of our legacy plans, you will only be able to upgrade it to one of our current plans.

If you are interested in creating a custom partnership, please contact us at [email protected]

If you would like to stay up-to-date with the latest news and promotions from MerchantWords, you can sign up for updates on our blog, subscribe to our YouTube channel, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter or Instagram.

If you’re already a MerchantWords subscriber don’t forget to join our private Facebook Group!

And, if you ever have specific feedback or questions, please reach out to us via the blue chat button below or at [email protected]

We appreciate your help in improving our customer experience.

The fact is, no one but Amazon has access to their exact numbers and data. If someone tells you otherwise, they aren’t being truthful; everyone in the industry uses different methods of estimating Amazon’s search numbers.

We have been refining and enhancing our search volume algorithm since 2012. Our goal is to provide the best, most accurate estimates as possible. We use various Amazon keyword reports to verify our ranking system, and constantly tune our algorithm to account for changes in monthly site visits as well as new search algorithm updates by Amazon’s A9 team.

MerchantWords data is especially helpful for judging the relative strengths of keywords, and for the discovery of new terms you might not have thought of otherwise. Being estimates means that relative comparisons and keyword ideation/discovery are two of the best uses of our data.

If you feel an estimate is off, it's frustrating for us ('cause it's our job to make the most accurate estimate possible) and it's frustrating for you ('cause you deserve to have the most accurate estimate possible). So we get it. But, it is important for us to know these things so we can correct the problem. If you notice any data that seems out of the ordinary please reach out to us via the blue button in the bottom right-hand corner or email us at [email protected]

A MerchantWords subscription is for one user per device. If you are logged out of your account it is because someone has initiated a session on another browser.

Yes, our Platinum Plan allows for two (2) concurrent users per account and Team Pricing packages are coming soon.

When you purchase a listing from MerchantWords Listing Advisor you'll receive:

An Amazon SEO professional to perform in-depth research into your brand, product, market, and competition.
A category expert from our US-based team of skilled writers who are dedicated keyword specialists and experienced e-commerce editors.
Personalized sales copywriting that is specific to your brand’s voice and style.
A fully optimized listing that includes a handwritten title, product feature bullets, and product description (text and HTML).
A complete listing that adheres to the

for your category, as well as Amazon’s terms of service, including character counts, words to avoid, and more.
Customized feedback about non-copy specific elements of your listing that may be affecting the discoverability of your product.
Free bonus #1: A complete list of backend search terms for maximum discoverability and traffic generation.
Free bonus #2: A CSV keyword bundle with terms and their estimated search volumes at the time of delivery.
Satisfaction guarantee: Have a concern about the finished product? No problem, just email us with your specific comments, and we will be happy to offer you a rewrite.

Once we've received your completed questionnaire, you can expect to receive your optimized listing in 10 business days or less. No need to mark your calendar, we'll email you with any updates.

Once you've ordered a listing, you'll receive an online form that asks a few basic questions to try to understand your product, your target audience, and your overall business goals. Some examples are:

How does your product benefit a customer?

Who are the primary customers for your product?

Do you have a warranty or a money-back guarantee?

Are there ANY phrases or claims we should avoid?

The more information you can provide, the better your final listing will be.

We can optimize current listings or launch brand new products. Whether you’ve been selling for years and need help managing hundreds of listings, or you’re just starting out and want to make sure your initial launch is effective, we’ve got you covered.

If you already have Enhanced Brand Content (EBC) or A+ Content on your listing, we provide an additional product description (with additional keywords), and can edit the copy of your EBC for readability. If you prefer that we only edit your existing copy, please let us know by emailing [email protected]

If you already have Enhanced Brand Content (EBC) or A+ Content on your listing, we provide an additional product description (with additional keywords), and can edit the copy of your EBC for readability. If you prefer that we only edit your existing copy, please let us know by emailing [email protected]

As SEO experts, we focus on improving your keywords and listing copy. We do not offer product photography or photo editing services at this time, but can refer you to one of our trusted providers. Please email [email protected] with the subject “Amazon Photo Recommendation” and someone will get back to you right away.

Yes, we do. If you purchased a parent ASIN listing, we can write content for child listings at a nominal fee. Please click the blue button in the right-hand corner or email [email protected] for more information.

The Listing Advisor team optimizes Amazon product listings with two factors in mind: maximum discoverability by Amazon's search algorithm and readability by real human shoppers. Our team of SEO experts strategically places each keyword to boost your rankings in organic search. Although search volume is essential, we are always looking for search terms that provide the highest potential for conversion. Top conversion keywords are relevant words that demonstrate a customer's intent to buy your product. We let our keywords guide our writing, and always prioritize your brand, your product's features, and the key selling points.

It can take up to 30 days to see the impact of your optimized listing as Amazon's algorithm indexes your listing for new keywords.

We currently offer listing optimization in English and Spanish. The Listing Advisor service is available for products sold in the Amazon US, CA, MX, UK, ES, AU, and IN marketplaces.

We can also optimize Walmart listings. Please click the button in the right-hand corner for more information.

As part of our comprehensive service, we deliver a complementary Keyword Advisor bundle, a custom-designed CSV file of all the keywords you’ll ever need for your listing. Use this list to improve your listing, inform your PPC campaigns, or research niches you may be missing.

If you are interested in purchasing only the keyword research and not the listing optimization just click on the blue button below and a team member will provide you with more details.