Amazon Optimisation
Reverse Optimisation: Why You Might Want Your Products to Rank Lower
In the world of search and eCommerce, we’ve been trained to believe that higher visibility is always better. More impressions. More clicks. More conversions. But what if there are cases where you actually want your product to rank lower?
17 August 2025
8 min read
When Would You Want to Sell Less?
Here are three common scenarios where Reverse Optimization makes sense:
1. It’s unprofitable for you, but profitable for Amazon.
You sell a product into Amazon wholesale as a vendor. It’s popular and profitable for Amazon, so they love it and promotes it heavily. But your margin? Razor thin or even negative.
Raising the price or delisting might trigger alarms at Amazon, it could trigger suppressions across your whole portfolio. Instead, Reverse Optimisation lets you quietly reduce visibility by tweaking backend keywords, suppressing A+ content, or steering traffic toward more profitable SKUs.
2. It’s a portfolio hero, but not a commercial one
Some products exist to elevate the brand, not the bottom line. A hero SKU that anchors your range, attracts press, or appeals to influencers but haemorrhages margin. You need it in the catalogue, but not on every search result.
In these cases, ranking lower helps you manage volumes while preserving the product’s strategic role in the lineup.
3. You need to improve your mix before a key event
Whether it’s for a retail line review, profitability audit, or preparing for a potential exit or investment round, sometimes your mix matters more than your top-line.
Instead of slashing SKUs or cutting off supply (both high-risk moves), you can use Reverse Optimisation to shift the balance. Nudging unprofitable SKUs down the page means higher-margin products have more room to shine.
How to Do Reverse Optimisation Without Raising Red Flags
This isn’t just about hiding a product, it’s about smartly signalling to the algorithm what you want. Tactics include:
Diluting Keyword Relevance: Pull high-intent keywords from the backend or reduce use in titles.
Suppressing Rich Content: Remove A+ content or images that are boosting conversions.
Altering Parent/Child Relationships: Break out variants that are propping up low-margin SKUs.
Redirecting Internal Traffic: Use Brand Store design and Sponsored Brand Ads to steer users toward your winners.
Minimising External Promotion: Don’t link to these SKUs from email, socials, or PR. Let them fade.
Reverse Optimisation in the Age of AI Search
As AI shopping assistants (like Amazon Rufus, ChatGPT, or Google Gemini) get better at recommending products based on what’s best for the shopper, brands need to get sharper about what they want the shopper to see.
With LLMs, there’s no “page 2.” You’re either in the answer… or you’re not. And for some products, being left out of the answer is exactly the goal.
Why LMO7 Helps Brands Do This
At LMO7, we don’t just help brands grow. We help them grow intelligently. That means knowing when to push and when to pull back.
Reverse Optimisation is a powerful tool in the right hands. When used deliberately, it can protect profit, guide perception, and strengthen your long-term commercial position without causing waves with buyers or customers.
Here are three common scenarios where Reverse Optimization makes sense:
1. It’s unprofitable for you, but profitable for Amazon.
You sell a product into Amazon wholesale as a vendor. It’s popular and profitable for Amazon, so they love it and promotes it heavily. But your margin? Razor thin or even negative.
Raising the price or delisting might trigger alarms at Amazon, it could trigger suppressions across your whole portfolio. Instead, Reverse Optimisation lets you quietly reduce visibility by tweaking backend keywords, suppressing A+ content, or steering traffic toward more profitable SKUs.
2. It’s a portfolio hero, but not a commercial one
Some products exist to elevate the brand, not the bottom line. A hero SKU that anchors your range, attracts press, or appeals to influencers but haemorrhages margin. You need it in the catalogue, but not on every search result.
In these cases, ranking lower helps you manage volumes while preserving the product’s strategic role in the lineup.
3. You need to improve your mix before a key event
Whether it’s for a retail line review, profitability audit, or preparing for a potential exit or investment round, sometimes your mix matters more than your top-line.
Instead of slashing SKUs or cutting off supply (both high-risk moves), you can use Reverse Optimisation to shift the balance. Nudging unprofitable SKUs down the page means higher-margin products have more room to shine.
How to Do Reverse Optimisation Without Raising Red Flags
This isn’t just about hiding a product, it’s about smartly signalling to the algorithm what you want. Tactics include:
Diluting Keyword Relevance: Pull high-intent keywords from the backend or reduce use in titles.
Suppressing Rich Content: Remove A+ content or images that are boosting conversions.
Altering Parent/Child Relationships: Break out variants that are propping up low-margin SKUs.
Redirecting Internal Traffic: Use Brand Store design and Sponsored Brand Ads to steer users toward your winners.
Minimising External Promotion: Don’t link to these SKUs from email, socials, or PR. Let them fade.
Reverse Optimisation in the Age of AI Search
As AI shopping assistants (like Amazon Rufus, ChatGPT, or Google Gemini) get better at recommending products based on what’s best for the shopper, brands need to get sharper about what they want the shopper to see.
With LLMs, there’s no “page 2.” You’re either in the answer… or you’re not. And for some products, being left out of the answer is exactly the goal.
Why LMO7 Helps Brands Do This
At LMO7, we don’t just help brands grow. We help them grow intelligently. That means knowing when to push and when to pull back.
Reverse Optimisation is a powerful tool in the right hands. When used deliberately, it can protect profit, guide perception, and strengthen your long-term commercial position without causing waves with buyers or customers.