Docs › Shortcodes
renders a ranked list for a search phrase, as either a bestseller list or a new-releases list. It is the one shortcode where you deliberately hand the product choice to Amazon.
In one line — the top five matches, numbered.
Every attribute
| Attribute | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
keyword |
empty | Required. The search phrase. With no keyword the shortcode renders nothing at all. |
count |
Display tab setting, otherwise 5 |
How many products to list. |
type |
bestseller |
bestseller renders the bestseller list. Any other value renders the new-releases list. |
type is not a strict enum. The check is only whether the value equals bestseller; everything else falls through to new releases. So type="bestsellers" — plural, an easy slip — silently gives you new releases instead. If a list looks like the wrong products, check that word first.
Where the default count comes from
count falls back to the default set on the Display tab, and only to 5 if that has never been set. So the same shortcode can produce different list lengths on two sites, which is worth knowing before you copy a shortcode between installs. Pass count explicitly whenever the length matters to the layout.
What this shortcode is and is not for
The products come from a live Amazon search, so the list changes on its own. That is the entire point of it, and also its limitation.
| Good fit | Bad fit |
|---|---|
| A sidebar or category page that should stay current with no maintenance | The main recommendation in a review you have written |
| A “what is popular right now” block below an article | Anything the surrounding text makes a claim about |
| Seasonal pages where the specific products genuinely do not matter | A list you describe as tested, ranked or chosen by you |
Never write prose around a list you do not control. A sentence like “our top pick this year is the first on this list” becomes false the moment Amazon reorders the results, and you will not be notified when it does. If the text refers to specific products, pin them with instead.
These lists do not go stale, which hides a different problem
A bestseller list refreshes itself, so it never shows a discontinued product — which means it also never warns you that a product you recommended elsewhere has died. The Product Health Monitor covers your pinned ASINs; the bestseller block covers nothing, because it has no fixed products to monitor. Do not read a healthy-looking list as a healthy site. See finding dead Amazon links.
Common questions
Is this the real Amazon Best Sellers chart?
No. It is a keyword search rendered as a ranked list, not a scrape of Amazon’s own Best Sellers pages. The ordering is search relevance, not sales rank — treat the number as a position in your list, not an official ranking.
Why did my list change without me editing anything?
Because it is a live search. That is expected behaviour, and it is the reason this shortcode is a poor choice for anything your article makes a claim about.
Can I exclude a product from the results?
Not from this shortcode — Amazon decides what matches. If you need control over which products appear, you need with explicit ASINs.
How many can I put on one page?
Each list is a separate lookup and a set of images, so several on one page is slow. One is usually right; two is a lot. Product blocks are the most common cause of Core Web Vitals failures on affiliate sites.
Next
- Floating bars, pop-ups and tickers — the persistent units.
- The
reference — for lists you control. - Writing a roundup that does not read like every other roundup.