We just promoted Burmese Pythons to a top level category. That means it now enjoys all the trimmings: trait tags, store directory, calculators, etc.

This is exciting because it's the first time we've elevated a category from an "Other" category to top level. As mentioned a few weeks ago, we are preparing to promote a number of other subcategories this year in similar fashion.

You can see what categories we are working on and provide input if you're an expert in these community forum topics. Thank you to everyone who contributed!

As you can see, we are kicking off 2021 with a fully redesigned home page. With this new layout there are a few minor changes worth mentioning.

When you are logged in, the update sections (blog and community) show up on the first page like before, because we want our regular users to be aware of changes.

If you are accustomed to jumping into a category using the Categories section, there is a faster way. In desktop, you'll see a new button "Browse by Category". In mobile, you can click the search icon (as pictured), and click "Browse by Category". The upcoming app will have a top level button just like desktop.

We hope you enjoy the new professional look. Stay tuned for the redesign of more pages, among other improvements.

We are preparing to promote a number of subcategories to top level this year with all the trimmings: trait tags, subcategories, store listings, calculators, etc.

We are conducting a survey of these species and need your input. Would you help us by reviewing our draft and providing feedback on anything we're missing or mistaken about?

The ones ready for you review are:

• Burmese Pythons
• Sand Boas
• Fat Tailed Geckos
• Axolotls

We are preparing a number of others and will be soliciting input on those soon.

We just ramped up the number of social media fields that sellers can display on their profile. Previously, we had two slots: home page and facebook. Now we've added 3 new fields: instagram, youtube and twitter.

If you previously had used one of these social media sites as your home page, we've moved that into the appropriate field. That includes 486 sellers using instagram, 343 with facebook, and 46 with youtube. Interestingly no one used Twitter as their home page.

All sellers should go and update their profile with these additional fields now to give buyers the full picture of their presence.

This covers the vast majority of the links used by sellers. If you have a presence on some other website that isn't one of the above, you are still free to use this as your home link.

At MorphMarket it's our job to make it as easy as possible for reptile, amphibian and invertebrate breeders and keepers to connect. And with 4,000 breeders and 50,000 animals from across the world in our marketplace, there's a lot to search through!

We recently rolled out a big upgrade to our search capability. Previously the search box gave no feedback as you typed into it. The new version has several benefits:

• It automatically completes your search so that you don't have to type as much and are less likely to typo. It also helps you discover what's on the site.
• It suggests several kinds of searches over the Ads. You can search for ads by Title, Category or Trait.
• You can search for Stores and not just Ads. You can search all the stores in a Category or even jump straight to a store page by Store Name or Owner Name. This option only displays if there are 3 or less matches. Stores included in this search are the same ones included in the Seller Directory, which requires active ads and/or membership.

It's worth noting that context matters. If you're already in a subcategory, suggested options will be limited to those applicable to that section. This helps to narrow down the overwhelming number of matches across all areas of the site.

The advanced search filters are still available, of course, which you can utilize instead of or subsequent to one of the searches above.

Two years ago, we introduced the MorphMarket ratings system. Since then we have gathered approximately 50,000 ratings on buyers and sellers making it one of the most valuable tools in the world of herp commerce.

We will be discontinuing the option for sellers to opt-out of the ratings system. This choice was provided when we launched first launched the system, but we will no longer support it moving forward because we believe it's unhelpful to the kind of transparency we want to promote in the marketplace.

In reality, using this feature has always been a bad look for the seller. It's better to have a few negative ratings with professional responses than to hide them all-together.

In two weeks, we will be removing this setting from all accounts. If you wish to permanently deactivate your account you may do so by contacting support.