Your listing performance could be negatively impacted by an the inadvertent inclusion of a keyword, language or other terms banned by Amazon. Check the Amazon Banned Keyword List regularly to ensure you haven’t fallen foul of recent changes and keyword inclusions.
Amazon has a habit of changing the banned keyword list regularly. However, most of the time sellers are unaware (particularly if you have existing products containing new words that have been added to the list).
But don’t worry, here we tell you everything you need to know about protecting your listings from penalisation on Amazon. You can also download our updated Amazon Banned Keyword List here.
Does your business sell on Amazon? Protect your performance by ensuring you are aware of the Amazon Banned Keywords List 2022.
You may or may not be aware that Amazon has a list of banned keywords that could seriously impact the success of your listings.
Your brand or business could have everything right in terms of branding or optimisation. Perhaps you’ve taken control of your brand on Amazon, and have invested in optimising the five creative pillars of your listings to appear higher up the Amazon search results? Or you are pumping money into Amazon ads in order to get a jump-start on your competitors?
You’ve ticked every box, including speedy delivery and high customer satisfaction. But, you’re still not seeing the results you want.
If this is the case, there is a chance that your listing could include one of Amazon’s banned keywords, which is severely suppressing your listings success.
Amazon has a list of keywords that are outright banned, and others that are ill-advised. Inadvertent inclusion of one of these banned words could be the reason your product is not appearing as it should.
Book authors have long suffered from this issue, since often they can have profanities, banned words, or controversial terms in the book title. Little-be-known to the author, their sales are inhibited on the largest online marketing platform on the planet because their titles or descriptions have fallen foul of the Amazon banned keyword list.
It is essential not to use the words and phrases that have an outright ban on A+ or Storefronts. This list includes terms such as:
It also outlaws environmental claims such as ‘eco friendly’ or terms such as ‘certified’. Ensure that you do not use any of these words or any variations of the phrases whatsoever.
To see the full list of the Amazon Banned Keywords here in our continually updated document, which we’ll email you free of charge.
In addition to the banned keywords, there are also a number of content restrictions. These are less cut-and-dry than the Amazon banned keyword list. Meaning there is more room for interpretation from Amazon.
Because of this grey area, it’s sometimes more difficult to tell if your listing copy has fallen foul of Amazon’s restrictions.
The content restrictions cover areas like:
Again, you can see the complete checklist in our free Amazon Banned Keywords download.
When referencing awards or endorsements, include a note in the text with the date when the awards or endorsements were achieved and the organisation granting the award. Do not mention awards received more than two years ago.
Any Certification claims must be substantiated by a note in the text with certifying or awarding body, study, publication or other evidence, and year.
As with the keywords, environmental claims with words like ‘eco-friendly’, ‘biodegradable’ and ‘compostable’, including their symbols, are not allowed either in text or in images. Claims that a product is ‘recyclable’/’ecological’ must be substantiated by a note in the text with supporting information, such as materials used or certifying body and year.
Satisfaction claims (for example, ‘100% satisfaction guaranteed’). Or boastful claims such as ‘#1 rated’, ‘top-rated’, ‘best selling’ and so on are simply not allowed.
It goes without saying that you cannot make medical claims about any product that hasn’t been through official medial approval processes.
To see a full list of the claims and awards restrictions, get a copy of Amazon’s restricted keyword list here.
Not only does Amazon have restrictions relating to the use of keywords and content, there are also further strict rules specifically relating to the product detail copy:
Titles
Titles, descriptions, bullet points or images
None of the following are allowed in product detail page titles, descriptions, bullet points or images:
Policies for adding detail pages
You cannot add details which infringe upon the IP rights of other parties or individuals. For more details, check the Intellectual Property Rights for Sellers page.
You can download Optimizon’s full Amazon Banned Keywords 2022 list here. The list is continually changing, but we keep it up to date so that both you, and our existing customers, can keep on top of Amazon listing optimization.