Breaking News: Amazon Keyword Search Is Alive & Well!

You’ve seen clickbaity blog titles and LinkedIn posts for 2 years now:

“Amazon Search is dead.”
“Everyone is using Rufus to discover products.”
“Alexa for Shopping is going to be used for discovery more than traditional search.”

For these same last 2 years, I’ve been one of the small minority voices saying: no, Amazon Search is alive and well. Rufus — and now Alexa for Shopping — does not change how the great majority of Amazon buyers search, find, and buy products.

First of All — Rufus Is No More

In May of 2026, Amazon pulled the plug on Rufus and replaced it with Alexa for Shopping, which is a very similar experience except much more enhanced — with capabilities such as knowing more of your purchase history and trends, and being able to do things like putting things on auto-purchase, setting reminders, etc.

So for all the people who said Rufus had completely changed the game, well, obviously that wasn’t true, because Amazon even replaced it.

I have done various polls using Helium 10 Audience in the past that ask 50 Amazon Prime members how they’re using Rufus and now Alexa for Shopping.

The numbers have definitely increased slightly over time, but the vast majority in these polls say that they have been using Rufus — and now Alexa for Shopping — to get more information on products as opposed to using it for product discovery. This obviously is not a very scientific way to determine the number of people who are using Alexa for Shopping for discovery. However, there is a very scientific way that will be able to prove that search is alive and well — and I’ll get into that in a little bit.

Why Is This Topic Even Important?

If the way that most Amazon customers discover products has drastically changed, then of course, this is a super important thing that Amazon brands need to know. It would affect the way that you run your advertising. It would affect the way that you structure your listings. It would affect the way you launch products.

So this is a very important topic. Do we still need to optimize for the A9 algorithm and traditional Amazon SEO, or do we need to completely change the way we structure our listings to be only optimized thinking about Alexa for Shopping?

Me personally, I never used Rufus that much because I did not find it very beneficial. I actually have been using Alexa for Shopping a lot more than I used Rufus because of its ability to do deeper level research on products that I’m looking into. I especially have always liked using Rufus and Alexa for Shopping to look at price history of products, as well as looking at summaries of reviews.

I personally do not have any inside information from Amazon per se that can tell you exactly how people use Rufus and Alexa for Shopping. However, my theory — which is based on logic — has always been that the main goal of Alexa for Shopping, formerly Rufus, was to help with what I call “discovery searching.”

Discovery searches are when you don’t exactly know what you need to buy. In the past, let’s say you’re going to a 25th wedding anniversary and you had never been to one before. You don’t know what a good gift would be for the married couple. What would you do?

You might go to Google, or nowadays you might go to ChatGPT or some other AI and do searches trying to figure out what kind of product might be appropriate. Then whatever the answer is, or whatever you find, you would then search that in Amazon.

If you already know what you want to buy, you usually do not go through that process. You just type in the exact keyword on Amazon. If you were looking for a 32-ounce insulated water bottle, almost nobody would go to AI first or want to have a conversation with a chatbot to find that product. You would just type “32-ounce insulated water bottle” on Amazon, because there is nothing faster and easier than this traditional way of shopping.

So has there been a massive shift in how many people use traditional search and keywords to find products? Has Amazon Alexa for Shopping really taken over the way that many — or most — buyers find products they’re shopping for?

Let’s actually go into the data.

The Data: Amazon Search Query Performance

While Amazon has not released official stats on exactly how people are using Alexa for Shopping, there are ways that we can see the effect it has on search — namely, by looking at Amazon Search Query Performance (SQP). SQP is available in Amazon Seller Central or in tools such as Helium 10, and gives exact search volume and other important search funnel statistics, such as number of clicks, number of add to carts, and number of purchases.

The interesting thing about Search Query Performance is that after the initial search, the follow-up funnel activity is very limited. For example, if somebody types “coffin shelf” in Amazon and hits search, that counts as one search. But if somebody then clicks a sponsored brand ad, that does not count as a click, and that funnel is no longer being tracked. Whatever happens after a click on a sponsored brand ad or a video ad is not registered by Amazon Search Query Performance.

The only things registered as clicks, add to carts, and purchases is if somebody directly clicks on a product from a search result, then adds it to the cart and buys it within 24 hours. If they are clicking to page 2 of search results, clicking back on their browser, or clicking sponsored brand or sponsored display ads — none of these count. Only when somebody clicks in the search results on an organic or sponsored product ad is it counted in Search Query Performance.

Data Point #1: Search Volume

One of the best ways to see if there is a new trend in the number of people using traditional keywords to search is by looking at the Search Query Performance data — first from a time period before Amazon Rufus came into existence (June 2024), and then seeing how search volume changed, if at all, from before Rufus came on, through the last year and a half of Rufus, and the last couple of months of Alexa for Shopping.

Helium 10 has the complete database of Amazon Search Query Performance, and we analyzed millions and millions of searches over keywords that have had consistent data since January of 2024, which was before Rufus came. And if you look at the chart below, you can see that search volume has remained relatively consistent year over year, month over month.

The biggest increase was actually in June of 2026 — but do not take this as a sign that more people are using search than before. As you recall, Prime Day fell in June of 2026 this year, and that’s why you see a spike.

But the important thing is: when you look at this graph, you can see that there has not been some huge drop-off in the number of people using traditional search. There is no sign that people are abandoning keywords to search for products in favor of Rufus or Amazon Alexa.

In other words, if for your kind of product a certain month last year — or even the year before Rufus came out — 500,000 people were searching for those keywords a month, today, two years later, 500,000 people or more are still searching for those keywords.

Data Point #2: Number of Clicks

The second thing we can look at from Search Query Performance to determine how people might or might not be using Alexa for Shopping is by looking at the number of clicks that happen after a search.

If somebody searches a keyword but then starts using Alexa for Shopping after that search without clicking on a product, that stops the Search Query Performance funnel. I confirmed this by talking to Amazonians who work in that department.

So to recap: if there was a mass exodus from using traditional search, we would have seen a decline in search volume. If after traditional search there was now a mass exodus in how people sifted through results — and they were using Alexa after the search — what we would see is a drastic decline in clicks.

What does the data show? For 2024 to 2025, including the time before Rufus came in, clicks have been very consistent. Interestingly, in the first half of 2026, you actually saw a drastic increase in clicks.

Now, one caveat: when Alexa for Shopping was introduced in May, you actually do see a decline in number of clicks for the first time, both in May and June. This could potentially be — if it continues — perhaps a sign that people have adopted Alexa for Shopping a little bit more than Rufus for sifting through search results after a traditional keyword search. We should keep a close eye on this going forward.

Data Point #3: Conversion Rate

The next thing to look at would be the conversion rate. If people were interacting a lot with Alexa after clicking on a product, you would assume that the conversion rate would go down. What does the data show?

Conversion rate from 2024 to 2025 actually went up year over year. 2026 has been a bit inconsistent — there were a couple of months of lower conversion rate and a couple of months of higher conversion rate — but what you did not see is a huge decrease.

That means there again has not been a humongous decrease in the amount of people who, after clicking on a product, just go ahead and add to cart and check out. In 2026, we have seen 3 months of lower conversion rates, but it’s too soon to say there is any kind of trend here.

However, my personal conversion rate as a shopper has probably declined, because I personally am using Alexa more after landing on a page. Just today, I was looking at buying a new podcast microphone for when I travel.

 When I landed on a certain page after searching a keyword, I actually started using Alexa for Shopping to ask questions and compare it with another product I had seen earlier. If I ended up buying one of those products, it would not have counted in Search Query Performance since I started interacting with Alexa for Shopping.

Data Point #4: Purchases

The last data point I looked at is simply the number of purchases that happened after a Search Query Performance search. And if you look over time, purchases have actually gone up year over year consistently every single month.

So What Is the Conclusion?

I hope you guys have not been drinking the Kool-Aid that the way that traditional search has completely changed.

Has Alexa for Amazon changed the game? Some things, yes. The way that people analyze reviews is definitely different — you don’t have to read the reviews anymore to determine if a product is good or not; you can have it summarized.

There are things that Amazon never exposed before, unless you had tools like Helium 10, such as price history of a product, that has definitely changed buyer behavior. Things like setting reminders and triggers to purchase a product if it reaches a certain price point have also changed the game for shoppers.

But in the context of brand owners, has there been a drastic change that should change the way you make a listing? Or has there been something that has lessened the value of doing keyword research in order to optimize your Amazon listing?

The answer is clearly no. There are still the same number of searches for keywords happening now as 2 years ago — and even before there was ever such a thing as Rufus or Alexa for Shopping.

So if you are an Amazon brand worried that you have to completely change the way you make your listings — or that your listings are no longer optimized — you can rest assured that this has not happened. The way you would optimize for keywords in 2024 is very similar to what you should be doing in 2026.

Should You Still Optimize Listings for Alexa for Shopping?

Of course you should. This is why Helium 10, in our AI Listing Builder tool, even allows you to enter in different products where we will go and look up what questions are automatically popping up from Alexa on these listings and make sure that your listing can answer them.

This is a no-brainer to do. You absolutely should be making sure your listings are optimized for Alexa for Shopping as well, even if it might only make a 1%, 2%, or 3% difference.

However, again — just do not panic and think that traditional keyword research no longer is important and that you should only be optimizing for Alexa for Shopping. The data clearly shows that Amazon keyword search is alive and well, and will continue to be for the time being.