Imprecise machines mess with me

Just a little while ago, I showed an example of imprecise algorithms and how it causes incorrect historical facts to be promulgated. The point is not that algorithms are scary things but that we should not confuse efficiency with accuracy (or truth).

So this past week, I have another encounter with imprecise machines, and this time, it's personal.

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If you go to Amazon right now, and search for my name in quotes "Kaiser Fung", you will get several versions of my 2010 book Numbers Rule Your World, including the recently published Chinese translation but you will not see my 2013 book Numbersense at all.

If you instead search for Kaiser Fung without quotes, the first match is Numbersense, followed by the older book.

To me, this is a clear mistake.

However, Amazon doesn't think so. This is what the customer service rep wrote me:

I understand your recent book "Numbersense" is not appearing in the search results when you search with your name "kaiser fung", including the quotes.

When you use our search engine to look for books, our system attempts to find the products you're most likely to be looking for based on the words you entered. Our search methods go beyond simple keyword matching and may also be using information not visible on the search results page, including attributes provided by the publisher.

So apparently, people who search for my name in 2013-4 are looking for my 2010 book instead of my 2013 book. In addition, my publisher has given them attributes to suppress my recent book from the search results.

Search results for books may be based on the text of each book, not just its title. That's why you may sometimes see results you weren't expecting.

I don't even understand what this sentence could mean, in the context of the name of the author.

I regret that we haven't been able to address your concerns to your satisfaction.

We won't be able to provide further insight or assistance for your request.

Thank you for contacting us.

This is rather shocking coming from the gatekeeper of most book sales.

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Needless to say, this type of error costs authors as some people won't find the book. Yet, Amazon is unwilling/unable to fix the issue. Are there any readers here who have insight into why this is happening and how I might be able to correct this error?

Comments

[Nick N.]

I notice that Numbersense is listed (in search results) as by "Fung, Kaiser", while Numbers Rule Your World is by "Kaiser Fung". I expect that has something to do with it. Searching for "Fung, Kaiser" (with the quotes) gives both books, though, so that's not the entirety of the problem.

[Kaiser]

Nick: that's an interesting tidbit. This may be what they mean by publisher attributes. It is rather disappointing that the algorithm is not smart enough to understand First Name+Last Name being equivalent to Last Name, First Name but it also doesn't surprise me. Also, it isn't surprising that the algorithm does not symmetrically treat the two formats. My publisher did tell me they revised the data sent to Amazon so hopefully by next week, this issue is resolved.

[Ken]

I can see Amazon's problem. If someone enters text enclosed in "" they presumably feel bound to return on;y records that contain that string. If someone enters just some text they would feel it best to return the most likely result. So if I enter Kaiser Fung then I get both books as first and second entries. Enter it as "Kaiser Fung" I only get the first book presumably because for the second the publisher only supplies Fung, Kaiser as author. So Amazon works excellently provided that you don't force the searches to be exact, in which case the will only be as good as the publisher supplied information, which is probably want you want. If I search for an exact name it is probably because I want that exact name.