Goal: Diagnose the most frequent hiccups and fix them on the spot—no rabbit holes.
“My keyword won’t turn Green.”
What’s happening: Green = the exact phrase appears in that section. If words are present but out of order, you’ll see Yellow.
Fix it: Put the #1 phrase early in the Title in natural wording. Let secondary phrases stay Yellow in Features/Description if the copy reads better. Anything that doesn’t fit cleanly goes to Backend. Don’t force awkward phrasing just to flip an indicator.
“The Eye hides too much.”
What’s happening: With the Eye on, the Lists hide any term already used anywhere in TFSD. If your Title or bullets changed, the hidden set changes too.
Fix it: Toggle the Eye off to review everything, then on again to re-isolate gaps. If something seems “missing,” search TFSD for that word—you’ll usually find it’s already present. Use Smart Copy only after the Eye is on so you don’t pull duplicates.
“Seller Central rejected my Backend.”
What’s happening: Backend prefers space-separated tokens. Commas, duplicates, odd punctuation, and over-length strings trigger errors.
Fix it: Use Smart Copy → Unused Single Words, then clean in Swiss Army Knife (strip non-letters, lowercase, min length 2–3, dedupe, join with spaces). Paste back with no commas and stay within limits (characters or bytes). Avoid brand/competitor names.
“I’m over the limit.”
What’s happening: You’re exceeding the field limit for your market. Some locales count bytes (e.g., JP), not characters.
Fix it: Open Project Settings and switch counters to the correct mode. Turn Enforcement ON to block overages while you type. Trim by: keeping the root and one or two key attributes, replacing long phrases with concise equivalents, and moving extra terms to Backend.
“Negatives blocked my term.”
What’s happening: The word/phrase is on Negative Phrase or Negative Exact for this Project, so the editor won’t include it.
Fix it: Open Negative lists. If the term is legitimately needed, remove it or narrow the match (e.g., move from Phrase to Exact). If the term belongs to a sibling variant, keep it negative here to prevent variant bleed.
“Optimize Listing missed a term I want.”
What’s happening: The draft focuses on highest-impact coverage and natural language. Not every long-tail fits the copy.
Fix it: Add the term manually where it reads well or put the single word in Backend. Refresh the Keyword Report to confirm coverage improved, and leave the copy natural.
“Keywords from one variant keep leaking into another.”
What’s happening: You’re mixing attributes across siblings.
Fix it: Keep one Project per child ASIN. Add sibling-specific attributes (colors, sizes) to Negative Phrase/Exact for each Project so they don’t cross-contaminate.
“Catalog import didn’t pull my ASIN.”
What’s happening: The catalog view is stale or you’re looking at the wrong marketplace.
Fix it: In Brand/Settings, ensure the correct marketplace is connected, then Refresh the catalog. Confirm you’re targeting the child ASIN, not just the parent. If it still doesn’t appear, add the Project manually and check again after the next refresh.
“The link says no access.”
What’s happening: The share link was rotated or unshared.
Fix it: Open the Project/Report, click Share, and send the new URL. Test it in an incognito window before sending.
“Counters look wrong after I paste.”
What’s happening: Hidden characters or pasted punctuation inflate counts.
Fix it: Run the text through Swiss Army Knife to strip non-letters and normalize spacing, then paste back. For byte-limited markets, set counters to bytes first.
“My Title reads spammy after I forced Green everywhere.”
What’s happening: You optimized the indicator instead of the shopper.
Fix it: Keep the primary phrase Green in Title, relax to Yellow elsewhere, and move leftovers to Backend. Read the Title out loud; if it sounds human, you’re on track.
Related:
- Don’t chase 100% Green → /help/editor/dont-chase-green
- Finish Backend search terms in 3 minutes → /help/editor/finish-backend-fast
- Counters, limits & enforcement → /help/editor/counters-enforcement
