Posted on December 15, 2025

Fellow Etsy sellers, if your shop’s views and sales have suddenly plummeted since early November—with no clear explanation—know that you’re part of a massive, widespread issue affecting thousands of shops. This isn’t a normal seasonal slowdown, poor SEO, or buyer behavior shift. It’s a persistent technical glitch causing complete de-indexing from Etsy’s public search results, and it’s been dragging on for over a month with no permanent resolution from Etsy.

Reports from Reddit, Etsy’s official forums, independent blogs like EcommerceBytes and Value Added Resource, and seller communities confirm the pattern started abruptly around November 6–7, 2025. Established shops—many with years of history, Star Seller status, and tens of thousands of sales—woke up to find their listings completely invisible in search. Even searching the exact title in incognito mode yields nothing on Etsy, though listings often still appear via Google or direct links.

How to Diagnose If You’re Affected (Do This Right Now)

The most reliable way to check:

• Go to your Shop Stats > Traffic sources.
• Look at “Etsy search” and “Etsy app/marketing” traffic.
• If these have crashed to near zero (or absolute zero) starting around Nov 6–7, while direct/external traffic is unchanged—this is the bug.
• It means your shop has suffered full de-indexing: No items appear in any public Etsy searches. Your account essentially “dies” organically on the platform—new buyers can’t discover you, and sales rely solely on repeat customers or off-site promotion.

Test it yourself: Open an incognito browser, search for your exact listing titles or unique keywords. If nothing shows (but your shop is active and compliant), you’re impacted.

This affects a huge range of sellers: long-established (10–15+ years), high-volume Star Sellers, newer shops, handmade, digital, POD, vintage—across the US, UK, Europe, and beyond. No violations, perfect metrics—yet overnight invisibility.

The Temporary Workaround: Vacation Mode Toggle

The most widely reported (and replicable) fix:

• Turn on Vacation Mode (or Holiday Mode) for 15–30 minutes.
• Then turn it off.

This forces Etsy to re-index your shop, often bringing an immediate surge in visibility, views, favorites, and sales.

Critical caveats:

• It usually only lasts ~24 hours (sometimes less, sometimes up to 48), then listings vanish again.
• Many sellers are forced to repeat this daily—a stressful, time-consuming hack that’s not sustainable.
• It doesn’t work for everyone: A significant number of affected sellers report no improvement, even after multiple attempts, renewing listings, or other tweaks.

Overuse might also negatively impact long-term rankings (unconfirmed, but a risk many are wary of).

Etsy’s Response: Limited and Frustrating

Community outcry forced a moderator acknowledgment on November 12: Etsy confirmed they’re “investigating the issue” with their engineering team.

But as of December 15, 2025:

• No official public statement from Etsy corporate.
• No timeline for a fix.
• No further updates beyond the initial acknowledgment.
• Standard support contacts/tickets: Most sellers get the same scripted reply—”We’re aware and the engineering team is working on it platform-wide; we can’t assist individually.”
• Many tickets are closed automatically without resolution.

At this stage, contacting regular Etsy support often feels pointless—they acknowledge the bug but offer no personal help or new info.

The Devastating Real-World Impact

This glitch hit right at the start of Q4—the busiest, most crucial holiday shopping season:

• Shops that were on track for record months (or steady thousands daily) dropped to zero organic sales overnight.
• Losses in the tens (or hundreds) of thousands for high-volume sellers.
• Full-time creators unable to pay bills, mortgages, medical expenses, or even holiday gifts.
• Years of hard work—optimized listings, photos, reviews—erased in an instant.

Buyers are frustrated too, complaining that favorite shops have “vanished” from search.

If your shop is booming right now—genuinely congratulations! But much of that extra traffic likely comes from displaced buyers whose usual sellers are invisible. Reduced competition boosts the remaining shops, proving just how massive this disruption is.

What You Can Do Right Now

1. Self-diagnose thoroughly: Check traffic sources and incognito searches as described above. Screenshot everything for records.
2. Try the Vacation Mode toggle: If affected, this is the primary (temporary) relief—though remember, it may not work for you and isn’t permanent.
3. Avoid wasting time on standard support: They’re limited to the “investigating” script—no individual fixes.
4. Amplify the issue: Share your story in active seller communities (Reddit r/EtsySellers or r/Etsy, forums where threads aren’t locked). Collective pressure is what got the initial acknowledgment.
5. Prepare for the worst: Budget conservatively this season; explore alternatives if needed.

This has gone on far too long without urgent action. Sellers deserve transparency, a swift permanent fix, and serious consideration for lost revenue during peak season.

You’re not alone, you didn’t do anything wrong, and this isn’t “normal fluctuations.” It’s a platform-breaking bug impacting real livelihoods.

Affected sellers: Share your details in the comments—when it started, shop age/status, if Vacation Mode works for you, drop severity. The more we document publicly, the harder it is for Etsy to stay silent.

Stay strong, community—we’ve got each other’s backs until this is resolved.