This is not the entry I wanted to do today.

Today is the reveal day for the Daring Cooks Oct Challenge. Well, mine's going to be 2 days late, so you get this instead.

Be amused with me.

I was checking my emails and received my first scam convo via Etsy today. WooHoo! 3.5 yrs+ on Etsy and only now getting targeted by a scammer! Whee!

Ahem..
( Ready to be amused? )

First up is the new scarves.



'Water'
13"w x 68"l
100% Crepe De Chine Silk

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'Water' is a hand dyed 100% Crepe De Chine silk scarf, carefully dyed in the Arashi Shibori method.

Available HERE or HERE.





'Under the Oaks'
Hand dyed Silk Scarf
11"w x 60"l
100% Habotai (China) Silk

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'Under the Oaks' is a unique hand dyed and sunprinted 100% Habotai silk scarf.

Available HERE or HERE.





'Boneyard'
Dark Series III
11"w x 60"l
100% Crepe De Chine Silk

* * * * * * *

'Boneyard' is a unique, hand dyed 100% Crepe De Chine silk scarf, that has been carefully dyed in the Arashi Shibori dyeing method, using Procion MX dyes. It was then discharged, and overdyed again with Procion MX dyes, resulting in the unique colors and patterns you see.

Available HERE or HERE.



The following scarves have updated photos...

( Continue... )

My thoughts and what I'm doing at the end.

Meta Tags on Etsy Shop Pages Adversely Affecting External Search Engine Results

June 10, 2009 at 6:03 pm · Filed under SEO, Search, Shop Sections, Tags · By GreenMamba

It has been brought to light that changes made to the Meta Tags on all shop pages may be causing Google and other search engines to bypass Etsy in results. What may seem at first to be an insignificant, single-word change - the addition of the tag word ‘handmade’ to all Esty shop section titles - has in fact resulted in dramatically negative results.

According to this Storque article, a number of SEO (search engine optimization) changes were made in April.

Meta keywords are a less critical component to SEO, and various search engines use them differently to help rank relevancy of a page in search results. For Etsy shop pages, we have automatically pulled the Section Titles for the shop to be used as the meta keywords. We observed that many sellers use basic terms for their sections that translate relatively well into keywords. For example, it’s common for jewelry shops to have Section Titles such as: bracelets, necklaces, rings, earrings. To edit your Section Titles, go to Your Etsy > Sections. (excerpt)

While Etsy has downplayed the overall importance of Meta Tags, sellers are discovering that the use of the keyword ‘handmade’ in conjunction with shop section titles - regardless of top-level category - has rendered their shops and items virtually invisible to search engines. Running shop URLs through an SEO checker, such as scrubtheweb.com, has revealed some troubling results, among them ‘keyword stuffing’. This practice, repeated use of the same word in the Meta Tags data line, is forbidden by major search engines and could result in pages being bypassed or excluded from results.

Another issue raised by this overuse of the term ‘handmade’ is the fact that it is being applied across the board in every shop, regardless of whether they sell handmade, vintage or supplies, often causing inadvertent false claims regarding the products being sold. (To check your own meta tags, click on View>Source, or View>Page Source, in your browser’s menu bar at the top of your shop page - not Your Etsy page.) Or just pull up a listing and look at the top of the page, see what it says.

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