Attribution now includes “Shelving”
Logan Nielsen is a Retail Marketplaces Account Manager at Acadia.
Walmart has recently made changes to how the Content Quality Score (CQS) is calculated. That means brands need to reconsider how they invest in Walmart product content and marketing initiatives.
In August 2023, Walmart rolled out some changes to its content quality score (CQS) composition, which affects how products will be indexed and ranked in organic search results.
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How Walmart calculates its Content Quality Score
Walmart's content quality score is composed of two components: content and attribution.
Content is simply the product name, a long and short description, and images. Historically, Walmart has put 40% importance towards content.
Attribution includes things like product tags and backend information such as country of origin, age group, and product reviews. Historically, Walmart has put 60% importance towards attribution to making sure your tags are put in there correctly so customers can find your product
With the changes rolled out in August, it's now the inverse. The new “Walmart Content Quality Score 2.0” places a 60% importance towards content and 40% towards attribution.
Here’s what else you need to know about this update, and what it means for brands who sell on Walmart.com.
Attribution now includes “Shelving”
Within that attribution category is a new requirement called shelving. Walmart is now weighing what category your product is in when coming up with your content quality score. Shelving is simply understood as the product’s category, much like in a brick and mortar context. The organization of where a certain product is located in the store needs to be consistent with how its organized on the digital shelf. Simply put, it's the information that’s on the left hand side of the screen when you're on Walmart.com. They want to make sure a customer can find your product via the correct shelf and not just searching for keywords.
Acadia’s recommendations to brands for the new Walmart updates
- Do not to skimp on the the attributes component of building a product detail page. On other marketplaces like Amazon it might be less important - it might be all about the content. The back-end attributes may not do a lot for your Amazon search visibility. But they are a key component on the Walmart marketplace.
- That said, content quality is becoming more important. I believe this change is inspired by what it can add to overall sales conversion. Promoting content that will help a customer to convert once they actually get to that detail page. No matter how perfect the shelving is or the journey is, the barrier is that product detail page.
- Walmart.com content optimization looks different to Amazon. For example, Walmart prefers shorter titles (75 characters) compared to the common practice of longer, keyword-optimized titles on Amazon that assist with search visibility. If you're a brand, you really need to be playing by the rules of the game. Amazon’s game and Walmart’s game are different.
Need help with your Walmart.com sales channel? Acadia can help! We are a Walmart Marketplace Partner, and have been working with brands on this platform since 2018.
We can help with Walmart.com Channel Management, as well as Walmart Connect retail media management. Contact us today to if you want to learn more.