An artisan goods brand sold its handmade products both on its own website and through a popular marketplace, the same strategy most growing brands use to reach more buyers.
The problem was which one Google preferred. A search for the brand’s own product names consistently surfaced the marketplace listing first, sending commission-paying traffic away from the site the brand actually controlled.
A marketplace SEO fix means strengthening a brand’s own site so it outranks its own marketplace listings for branded and product searches, instead of competing with and losing to a channel it’s already paying commission on. For a campaign like this, typical results are the brand’s own domain reclaiming 40% to 75% of branded search visibility within 3 to 5 months (illustrative range, not a specific client’s result).
The Background: Paying Commission to Outrank Yourself
Selling on a marketplace made sense for reach. But the marketplace's own domain authority meant its copy of the brand's listing often outranked the brand's own site, even for searches using the brand's exact name. Every one of those clicks cost a commission the brand's own website never needed to pay.
Auditing Which Searches the Marketplace Was Winning
We mapped branded and product-specific searches to see exactly where the brand's own site ranked against its marketplace listing, and found the marketplace winning the large majority of searches that should have gone straight to the brand's own store.
Strengthening the Brand's Own Site to Compete and Win
We rebuilt product pages with content, structured data, and detail the marketplace listing couldn’t match, differentiated enough that Google had a clear reason to prefer the brand’s own domain, consistent with Google’s own guidance on canonicalization and duplicate content, which rewards the version of a page that offers the most complete, original value.
We’ve fixed this same channel conflict for 100+ businesses across e-commerce, professional services, and SaaS, all on 6+ years of white-hat SEO. If your own marketplace listings outrank your own website, industry-specific SEO strategies is where that gets corrected.
Building Backlinks and Authority Behind the Brand's Own Domain
The marketplace's authority came partly from scale, so we built backlinks and digital PR pointed specifically at the brand's own domain, giving it the kind of trust signal a single listing on someone else's marketplace could never accumulate on its own.
The Real Change: from Losing Searches to Winning Them
Before, a buyer searching the brand's exact product name was handed to the marketplace by default. After, the brand's own site consistently outranked its own listing, keeping both the sale and the full margin that came with it.
The Business Outcome
Commission paid on marketplace sales dropped as more of the same demand converted directly on the brand's own site instead. The marketplace still brought in new buyers; it just stopped quietly winning searches the brand should have owned outright.
Why This Approach Worked
A marketplace listing and a brand's own site aren't really competitors until Google can't tell which one deserves to rank. Giving the brand's own domain a clear authority and content advantage is what let it win searches it was commercially entitled to all along.
Final Results at a Glance
- Branded search visibility reclaimed by the brand's own domain: typically 40% to 75% within 3 to 5 months
- Direct-site organic orders: typically a 25% to 60% increase
- Commission-based marketplace revenue share: typically decreases by 15% to 35% as direct sales grow
- Product page ranking for branded terms: typically improves by 5 to 12 positions
- Average order value on the brand's own site: typically 10% to 20% higher than marketplace orders
What This Means for Similar Businesses
If your own marketplace listings consistently outrank your own website, you're paying commission on sales your own site should be winning for free. At Growfactor, this is the same industry-specific SEO strategies approach we bring to any brand selling across both its own site and third-party marketplaces.
Growfactor strengthens your own site so it wins the searches you’re already paying commission to lose. Get a free audit today.
For a look at what a different local fix did for another business, see our client results.
