Perhaps the most important "proof" that traditional keyword search is still king
By Bradley Sutton · July 22, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
Perhaps the most important "proof" that traditional keyword search is still king 2 years after Rufus/Alexa have come about is looking at SQP purchases.
SQP purchases by no means represents anything close to all purchases that happen on Amazon. Subscribe and save, purhcases that come from sponsored brand ads, purchases that come from browsing multiple products first, purchases that happen 24 hours after the initial keyword search, etc. etc. are not counted.
However, if as search conspiricy theorists want you to believe, there has been a mass exodus that has happened from traditional search for Alexa, you would see a mass decrease in purchases captured in the SQP funnel due to less searches, more people falling out at some point in the funnel in order to research in Alexa, etc.
But we don't see such a mass exodus. I think we DEFINITELY see a slight decrease in thsoe captured, especially in June. If you look historically, Prime month has a spike in purchases from SQP, but we didn't see that in June.
Could be that after 2 years, now more people see the value in using Alexa to check price history, or compare prices, reviews, etc. But despite the YoY in purchases, you don't see the spike that last July had. But the decrease, if any, is not large.
The point remains: You would be a fool to NOT opitmize your listings for ANYTHING that can give you lift on Amazon. You SHOULD be optimizing your listings for Alexa and anything else that can help you.
But DO NOT abandon the fundamentals of what makes a good listing, thinking that keywords are no longer important in the buyer journey. The data says otherwise.