Amazon A9 vs A10: What Changed and What Still Matters

What A9 optimised for

Sales velocity, price, keyword density in the title, and Sponsored Products spend all had heavy weighting under A9. You could rank a product by throwing PPC at it, even if organic conversion was middling. That worked from 2015 through 2020, roughly.

What A10 shifted

A10 (unofficial name for the current model) weights off-Amazon traffic sources, seller authority, click-through-rate on organic placements, and conversion after a paid click. Amazon started rewarding sellers who bring their own traffic and punishing sellers who buy their way to the top without earning conversion.

Three signals that matter more now

One: your external traffic (Meta, Google, TikTok sending customers to your listing) counts as an authority signal. Two: your seller feedback score and account health directly influence how your listings rank against competitors of equal quality. Three: click-through-rate on organic search placements matters more than absolute click count. A listing showing to fewer people that clicks better beats one showing to more that clicks worse.

What still works from A9

Keyword-relevant titles. Fast page load. Competitive pricing. Enough reviews to clear the trust threshold. Prime eligibility. None of these went away, they just stopped being enough on their own.

The practical playbook

Build for conversion first, PPC second. Send external traffic (Meta ads, email lists, creator affiliates) directly to your listing to feed the authority signal. Keep your account health perfect. Reply to every negative review within 24 hours. And treat PPC as the accelerator once organic is working, not the engine.