How Ranking Works

Last updated: 22 October 2026

This page explains how we decide the order in which products and shops appear on Rude Gifts. UK law on online marketplaces (the Platform-to-Business Regulation) asks us to tell sellers this, and our seller agreement (section 8A) points here for the details. We keep this page up to date whenever we change how ranking works.

1. Category pages and all products

On a category page (for example Cards or Mugs) and on the All products page, we show products that are listed in that category or in any category below it. Only products from shops that are open, have accepted our seller agreement and aren't paused for an unpaid plan payment are shown.

By default, the newest listings come first, ordered by the date each product was listed.

The search box on these pages narrows the list to products whose name, description or product code contains the words typed. It filters the list; it doesn't reorder it. Buyers can also filter by price, rating, in stock and on sale. None of these filters look at a shop's plan.

Buyers can choose their own order instead:

2. Site search

The main search page looks for the words typed in product names and descriptions, shop names and blog posts. If the search ends in "s", it also looks for it without the "s" (so "mugs" finds "mug"). It shows up to 8 matching products, 4 shops and 4 blog posts.

We don't currently rank search matches by relevance, popularity or anything else: matching products and shops are shown in no particular order. Blog posts are shown newest first.

Before anything is typed, the search page shows "Trending products" (the most viewed products) and "Popular shops" (the shops with the most products listed).

3. Your own shop page

On a shop's own page, products are shown in "Recommended" order unless the buyer picks one of the sorts above. Recommended works like this:

• Products with a higher placement score come first. A newly listed product can be given a starting score in its first week; after that the score is based on its views and how often those views turn into sales. Products without a score come after those with one.
• Products with the same score are mixed by category (a card, then a mug, then a badge, rather than all the cards together), in an order that changes once a day, so the page stays the same while someone is browsing.

4. The home page and menu

• Best sellers on the home page are the 12 products with the most sales (6 on phones).
• Until anything has sold, that row is called Picks from our shops instead. Shops take turns (one product from each shop, then a second from each), each shop's products are mixed by category, and the mix changes once a day.
• New in shows the 6 newest listings that aren't already in the row above.
• The home page, the menu and the filters only list categories that have at least one product on sale.
• The product marked "Featured" in the menu is simply the newest listing that has a product photo. It is checked once an hour.
• The Featured shops spot is explained in section 6.

5. Payment doesn't change the order

6. Featured shops

Some plans give a shop extra placement in clearly labelled featured areas, separate from the normal order above (seller agreement 8A.2a). At the moment there is one: the "Featured shops" spot, on the home page and on category pages. It's labelled "Pro shops, in rotation" and says that it doesn't change the order of products in search or categories. It isn't shown on the All products page or in search.

A shop can appear there if it:

• is on the Pro plan (including a Pro payment that has failed, for the 7-day grace period before the shop is paused)
• is active and not paused for an unpaid plan payment
• has accepted our seller agreement
• has at least 3 products listed and on show
• on a category page, sells in that category (or a category below it)

How shops take turns:

• Up to 4 shops are shown at a time.
• Each day, the shops that qualify are put in a random order. Every visitor sees the same order that day, and the home page and each category page have their own order.
• Every hour, the next 4 shops in that order take the spot, going back to the start when the list runs out. Over a day, each shop gets about the same amount of time. If 4 or fewer shops qualify, they are all shown all the time.
• Each shop is shown with up to 3 of its best-selling products (on a category page, from that category).
• We check who qualifies every 10 minutes, so a change to your plan or products shows up shortly after.

We may change the featured options we offer. When we do, we'll update this page.

7. Promotion away from the site

We may promote your products elsewhere, for example in search and social media advertising and in our email newsletters, at our own cost. This doesn't change what you are paid for a sale (seller agreement 8A.3 and 6.9).

8. Questions?

If something on this page isn't clear, or your products aren't showing where you expect, get in touch: